DOON, Iowa -- Mike Kats believes he has stumbled upon the idea of a lifetime. 

He believes he has uncovered away to eliminate much of the unpleasant odor from hog wastes in a confinement environment. Kats, his wife, Lorinda, and their two sons live on a farm between Rock Valley and Doon. 

"About seven years ago we had a well with a high iron content in the water, and we needed a way to filter out that iron," Kats said. "Two salesmen from Minnesota contacted me and sold me an ozone-generating-system to treat the well water used by our hogs. The well water had an unpleasant taste and contained too much iron. I soon discovered the system enhanced the taste and quality of the water." 

He wasn't using the ozone for bacteria control. All Kats was using it for at that time was to rid the water in his well of the iron. Because of that operation, the ozone gas got too strong in the farm office located inside one of the hog buildings. To solve that problem; Kats drilled a hole in the ceiling to let the ozone gas escape into the attic. 

"The air from the attic was being accidentally drawn into that hog facility (due to a large number of fans inside the building), and because of that we began to see dramatic air quality differences because of the excess ozone from the water system being used in the air application," Kats said. 

Idea Takes Root 
His idea of using ozone to not only control hog odor but also to improve the health of the hogs began taking root. 

Since then he has been working or a system to distribute ozone as evenly as possible in hog confinement situations. 

"Hog odors can lower property value, strain relationships with neighbors, and diminish the quality of people's lives," Kats said. 

In-house storage of hog manure, now common in new hog buildings, makes it necessary to remove odor from the building for the health of the hogs. Hence, the many fans located in hog facilities. 

"This ventilation is great for the hogs, but problematic for neighbor and the producer himself," Rat said. "Pit additives are available and have been tried, but the odor problem remains." 

Patent pending 
Kats has formed a partnership Ozone Solutions, with a research engineer, Scott Postma. Their patent on the ozone system is pending. 

Postma lives in Sioux Center where he earned a mechanics engineering degree from Dordt College. 

"Before I started working with the ozone systems, I was in and out of my hog buildings as fast as possible," Kats said. "With the odor controlled, we began to see health benefits. I like working in there better. Lorinda takes care of the farrowing houses. She likes working in there better now. We both spend more time in the buildings now, which leads to better performance of the hogs. 

"Everything that needs to be done gets done now -- contrary to before when we got out of the buildings as soon as we could because we couldn't stand the odor," Kats said. 

Kats said he has integrated the system into all of his hog facilities. 

"In this ozonation system, there is a contact tank where the ozone mixes with the water," he said. "Once the ozone has oxidized all of the foreign molecules in the contact tank, the excess ozone needs to be bled off before the hogs will drink it. It is then fed into the hog buildings through a flexible PVC tube as evenly as possible." 

He said this system has a three-fold benefit -- the odor is controlled, the health of the hogs is enhanced, and the environment is enhanced for the workers in the building. 

Change is constant 
Kats and Postma have worked extensively to design a generator that can endure the harsh environment inside swine confinements, and are pleased with the results. However, they believe that the technology needed to perfect their system is changing rapidly and in order to keep up they need to continue to change and upgrade their applications. 

In an attempt to present their use of ozone simply, Postma explains; "The electrical grid splits the oxygen molecule into oxygen atoms. They recombine with other molecules to form ozone.'' 

Kats added, "We aren't masking the odor. We're changing the chemical composition. For the ozone to work well it needs heat and humidity - the kind of environment found in hog facilities.'' 

Variables needing to be considered when installing their ozone distribution system are the dimensions of the building, the number of rooms in that building, the number and size of the hogs, the location and number of fans being used, the distance between floor and the manure surface, and the location of ceiling vents. 

"We are seeing a dramatic reduction in all the diseases hogs get other than the systemic ones because we are enhancing the environment," Kats said. "In large hog confinements we see everywhere today you will see the control of the temperature in the building, but at the sacrifice of air quality. I have been told by a knowledgeable hog veterinarian that we suppress: the ability of the hog to grow by 40 percent when we neglect air quality." 

From barns to kennels 
The two entrepreneurs have in- stalled their systems in more than 40 facilities, including poultry barns and dog kennels, in Iowa, South Dakota, Arkansas, Minnesota and Canada. 

With Iowa State University, Kats performed a four-month test of the system involving 600 head of hogs of like size and age. Three hundred were housed in a facility with ozone treatment; the remaining 300 were not. When the hogs were sold, the hogs in the treated environment brought $3,650 more than the hogs in the untreated environment. ISU officials wanted Kats to continue the experiment for 18 months, but he declined because of the loss in production in the untreated rooms. 

In two years Kats has had flu in his hog confinement once; before ozone of treatment his hogs would get flu about twice in the spring and two or three times in the fall. He has realized substantial savings on vaccines, medication and hired help to administer the antibiotics, he said. 

"We have four individuals in Canada using our systems. One has it in his laying barn for chickens. In a two-week period he saw an increase of 1.7 percent in egg production -- a $2,700 performance increase. But I need to say one has to be careful with ozone. You have to know what you are doing or you end up with the ozone being the irritant, or the problem, versus the odor, the ammonia, the hydrogen sulfites, the methane gases, etc. All our units are adjustable. Scott does the installation," Kats said. 

Kats said, "I have enjoyed these last seven years. I like a challenge. I don't think until the day we die will have found all the uses for ozone. The great thing about ozone is it leaves no residue. We may eventually go into the manufacturing of the ozone units. One thing we know for sure -- these units pay for themselves approximately three times a year.'' 

"The results are almost too good to be true. That's why our ideas have met with skepticism. We hope to eventually have enough systems up and running that we can convince farmers of the value of ozone treatment," Postma said.