A review article published in World’s Poultry Science Journal last month discusses the global increase in broiler chicken production and the odor impacts that such high-density production facilities have on surrounding communities.

Dr. Sharma and his co-authors comprehensively review the challenges of poultry odor mitigation, with reference to odor mitigation research in other livestock industries, and discuss the benefits of measuring odorous compounds (primarily nitrogen-, oxygen- and sulfur-containing species) directly in real time. That is, they postulate that direct analysis methods are more appropriate for this research compared to traditional sample preconcentration, followed by thermal desorption and chromatography.

The authors describe the benefits of SIFT-MS with authority, since they have previously published research utilizing the technique to probe the relationship between nutrition and odor, (see our previous post on their research). In addition to direct analysis of all odor species with high sensitivity, application of SIFT-MS greatly reduces sample degradation issues, as thermal desorption and chromatography are eliminated. This is particularly important for thermally labile organosulfur species.

To read the full article “Nutritional effects on odour emissions in broiler production” by N.K. Sharma, M. Choct, S. Wu, and R.A. Swick, in World’s Poultry Science Journal (Volume 73(2), June 2017, pp. 257-280), visit https://doi.org/10.1017/S0043933917000046.