Mitigating Carbon Emissions: The Impact of Peat Moss Feeding on CH₄ and CO₂ Emissions during Pig Slurry Storage

The present study investigated the impact of peat moss as a feed additive on the emission of methane (CH₄) and carbon dioxide (CO₂) from piggery slurry stored in slurry pits. There is no well-known study on the relationship between pig manure generated after feeding peat moss as a feed additive and CH₄ and CO₂ released during the storage period. A lab-scale experiment was conducted for two months using a slurry pit simulator composed of six vessels—three for pig slurry collected after feeding 3.0% peat moss as a feed additive (PFS) and three for pig slurry without feeding peat moss (CTL). PFS reduced CO₂ and CH₄ emissions (p < 0.05) from stored pig slurry by approximately 23% and 44%, respectively. PFS exhibits substantially elevated concentrations of humic substance (HS) such as humic acid, fulvic acid, and humin compared with CTL, with fold differences of 2.3, 1.8, and 1.1, respectively. Elevated HS levels in the PFS seemed to limit hydrolysis, resulting in lower total volatile fatty acid concentrations compared with CTL. A dominance of CH₄ in total carbon emissions was observed (p < 0.05), with CH₄ accounting for approximately 93% and 95% of total carbon emissions in PFS and CTL, respectively. PFS had a roughly 43% lower impact on cumulative carbon emissions than CTL, primarily due to decreased CH₄ emissions. These findings suggest that PFS may be a promising approach for mitigating carbon emissions and potentially impacting environmental sustainability and climate change mitigation efforts.