Sciencemadness Discussion Board

chemical composition of smokes for pyroponics

pepe - 27-6-2016 at 12:52

Hello gentlefops, I come to you today with a question that I am having difficulty figuring out. If this belongs in another subforum such as the bio one I understand since its primarily about botany but it is also mostly a question about smoke.

As a little background I should say this is a chemistry question with relation to physics and I ask because of interest in botany. I have been researching into many different nutrient systems and various styles of ponics with specific interest in root systems. After hearing about the various forms of hydroponics, aeroponics and terraponics I got to wondering about, and please consider this with an open mind, pyroponics.

Bear with me here as this is a more theoretical inquiry than a practical one considering the many other applications that would probably work far better. The idea would be to take the major nutrients, say, nitrogen (I know it does not burn but could be fogged in with ease), phosphorus, potassium, calcium, sulfur, magnesium etcetera and created a smokescreen comprised of these elements, cool it, blow the cooled smoke over the roots of the plants immediately followed by a fogging of the roots.

There are reasons I think this may work and reasons I could see it failing. My major concern is suffocation of the roots through the smoke screen. I would probably think a smoke stream may be more successful though I would be interested to see results from both. Now before I get too much into my hypothesis of the botany {I felt a diatribe comming on} I will lay out my question plain and simple.

If I were to burn some quantity of the above listed nutrients in their elemental composition my theories of what I would get is I would get a mixture of chemicals from the traces of oxegen and other atmospheric gasses as well as the materials used to facilitate/instigate the process. If this holds to be correct how can I find out what concentrations of each component I have obtained AND would there be a way to separate the constituents while keeping the smoke viable. Further if the only way to seperate the constituents was to settle the smoke could I still use the particulate dusting to blow over the roots if I collected a large enough quantity?

This post is getting a little out of hand and I think this is a good starting point but I still have quite a few questions.

Also I dont care to hear about how impracticle this may be. Of course this entire process would be simplified by vaporization or some such method but I am looking to satiate this very specific curiosity on the composition of smoke from burned elements.

[Edited on 27-6-2016 by pepe]

CRUSTY - 13-7-2016 at 11:49

So are you proposing to create some sort of aerosol or fine powder to disperse, or are you actually planning to burn these? If the latter, do you mean you would want to burn them together or separate?

hissingnoise - 14-7-2016 at 00:51

Quote:
The idea would be to take the major nutrients, say, nitrogen (I know it does not burn but could be fogged in with ease), phosphorus, potassium, calcium, sulfur, magnesium etcetera and created a smokescreen comprised of these elements, cool it, blow the cooled smoke over the roots of the plants immediately followed by a fogging of the roots.

"Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig, es ist nicht einmal falsch", as Pauli might say!

Sorry! You should first understand that plant-roots cannot utilise macro-nutrients in elemental form!

And that's without mention of the micro-nutrients and various trace elements ....

pepe - 14-7-2016 at 15:40

Quote: Originally posted by CRUSTY  
So are you proposing to create some sort of aerosol or fine powder to disperse, or are you actually planning to burn these? If the latter, do you mean you would want to burn them together or separate?


The original thought experiment I proposed would be the burning of the material to (hopefully) obtain smoke that contains the desired nutrients. It intuitively makes sense to me that it would be best to burn them separately but perhaps collect all the smoke in one container for distribution among the roots.

And to Hissingnoise, as an amateur I have to ask what form plant-roots can utilize nutrients? Perhaps I misunderstand your post but that could be due to my own unfamiliarity with the process of nutrient uptake. If you have any resources for me to better understand the subject I would be extremely delighted to look into them.

hissingnoise - 15-7-2016 at 02:06

Quote:
It intuitively makes sense to me that it would be best to burn them separately but perhaps collect all the smoke in one container for distribution among the roots.

Trust me, it makes not the least sense ─ and you appear not to know the difference between chemical elements and their compounds.

Plant-roots are delicate living structures which can only exist within a fairly narrow set of parameters ...

Lack of oxygenated water, e.g. will quickly kill them, as will contact with strong acids and bases!

And all nutrients must be in the form of very dilute near-neutral sol.s in water.

pepe - 15-7-2016 at 12:23

Quote: Originally posted by hissingnoise  
Quote:
It intuitively makes sense to me that it would be best to burn them separately but perhaps collect all the smoke in one container for distribution among the roots.

Trust me, it makes not the least sense ─ and you appear not to know the difference between chemical elements and their compounds.

Plant-roots are delicate living structures which can only exist within a fairly narrow set of parameters ...

Lack of oxygenated water, e.g. will quickly kill them, as will contact with strong acids and bases!

And all nutrients must be in the form of very dilute near-neutral sol.s in water.



I am fairly new to the study of chemistry so the difference between element and compound is not readily clear to me. If you could elucidate on the difference rather than point out my lack of knowledge that would be far more helpful.

I understand a fair amount of the parameters required to cultivate roots and obviously strong ph either way is not good for sensitive organic tissue. What I am getting at is that pointing out the obvious is neither helpful nor beneficial to either of us.

CRUSTY - 15-7-2016 at 16:59

If the confusion here is actually on the difference between an element and a compound, an element is what you would find on the periodic table, whereas a compound, in the simplest sense, is two or more elements that are chemically bonded together. This occurs through sharing and hybridization of electron orbitals, but that's another topic for another time.

Part of the biggest issue with what you propose is that these compounds are not being dissolved in water. Very few plants take up nutrients (with the exception of water itself) in their normal form. For example, many fertilizers contain large amounts of ammonium nitrate (NH4NO3). When this fertilizer is mixed with soil, nothing will happen unless you water it. When you water the soil, the ammonium nitrate, which has an extremely high solubility in water, becomes dissolved and subsequently absorbed by the root system. The plant then separately absorbed the nitrate and ammonium ions (NO3- and NH4+ respectively) and uses them per its current needs. This goes for pretty much every other nutrient in existence.

There are quite a few reasons why your proposal wouldn't work, and the above explanation is just one of many of a similar nature.

pepe - 15-7-2016 at 19:08

That is why I made the consideration of fogging after smoking. My thought process was that of course just dusting the roots wont work but perhaps if they get watered afterwards it would assist nutrient uptake. The major problem I see with that is that the ratio of nutrient to water would be extremely high on the nute's side.

Again, this was always a thought experiment and not a serious endevor and I do plan on playing devils advocate for this idea just because it seems to point out flaws in my understanding well enough to where if I keep going with it ill actually learn a good deal.