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Lab-scale batch reactors were used to study ammonia emission and organic degradation of liquid swine manure under three different aeration rates (0.5, 1.2 and 1.9 L per minute) in a 21-day experiment with the temperature for all reactors controlled at 15oC. The results indicated that after first day of operation, all aeration treatments increased the manure pH by more than 1 unit (from 6.7 to between 8.3 and 8.6). The ranges of daily ammonia emission corresponding to the three airflow rates tested increased from 1.66 to 5.69 mg/L, 6.15 to 14.16 mg/L, and 11.33 to 32.3 mg/L when the airflow rates increased from 0.5 to 1.9 L/minute, which underscored the need for appropriately designing aeration systems to reduce ammonia emission and nitrogen loss. The removal rates for total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN) under the three aeration rates ranged from 4.5 to 19.6 % at the end of the experiment, among which 33.4%, 63.8%, and 86.1% of the TKN reductions were attributed to ammonia volatilization, respectively. The BOD5 concentration in manure was found to be linearly correlated with aerial ammonia emission with a coefficient of correlation of 0.81. In addition, the results revealed that the ratio of daily ammonia emission to the cumulative ammonia emission followed a power relationship with the aeration time, featuring a correlation coefficient of 0.98.