Source: Chris Scott, MEATINGPLACE, 8/6/15


An associate research professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Missouri has come up with a way for poultry farmers reduce the amount they spend to heat their barns.

Shawn Xu has developed a waste heat recovery system that improves the efficiency of poultry barn heating and lowers the amount of propane needed to heat the structures. Xu — a specialist in ground-source heat pumps and geothermal energy — reports that his system captures about 60 percent of the warm air that escapes from current barn heating systems. It then reuses that thermal energy to pre-heat the air going into the heat-generating equipment, reducing the amount of propane needed to maintain barn temperatures.

His field tests indicated that the system eliminated the need for poultry farmers to constantly adjust ventilation temperature settings because his system provides a more even temperature on a continuous basis. A USDA grant is expected to help Xu test a theory that the system may also improve air quality in barns by reducing carbon dioxide, ammonia and moisture through field testing at farms in three Midwest states.

USDA estimates that there are nearly 100,000 poultry barns across the United States and a typical turkey farmer spends about $30,000 annually for propane to cover heating a single brooder barn.

Additional information on Xu and his system is available through the University of Missouri’s College of Engineering.

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