Application of LHC gas recuperation systems for methane emission control in livestock housing

Abstract

Abstract The CH4rLiE (CH4 Livestock Emission) project presents a dry-gas laboratory proof-of-principle for mitigating methane (CH4) emissions in livestock housing. This work investigates the technical feasibility of capturing CH4 at low concentrations by adapting gas recovery systems originally developed for Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiments at CERN. A laboratory-scale prototype was evaluated using dry synthetic gas mixtures across 899-4509 ppm, leading to the selection of commercial Z5 zeolite as the primary adsorbent due to its higher capacity compared to the other materials tested and stable Vacuum Swing Adsorption (VSA) regeneration performance. To bridge the gap to representative dairy barn conditions (10-100 ppm) where direct experimental validation was not conducted, thermodynamic models (Toth, Langmuir, Henry) were used to extrapolate adsorption behavior down to 50 ppm. Consequently, adsorbent mass requirements in the ultra-low concentration regime represent preliminary model projections rather than direct empirical measurements. These results validate the operational concept and provide foundational parameters for full-scale field prototype development.