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: '''Heat wood in the closed tin to approx. 300 degrees Centigrade in a solar cooker.'''
 
: '''Heat wood in the closed tin to approx. 300 degrees Centigrade in a solar cooker.'''
 
: (Somewhere between 200 C for a couple of hours and 400 C for half an hour will do).
 
: (Somewhere between 200 C for a couple of hours and 400 C for half an hour will do).
  +
There is a good explanation of the overall benefits of turning woodchips or other biomass such as corn cobs to charcoal on the .Solar Fire open source web page
.
 
   
  +
http://www.solarfire.org/Solar-Charcoal
: The wood will turn give off smoke and water vapour below[[File:Solar_charcoal_006.jpg|thumb|180px|Pyrex bowls trap heat stop wind loss]] 200 C.
 
  +
: Wipe the pyrex bowl lid to remove moisture and soot if its building up, before it gets too hot to handle.
 
 
: The wood will give off smoke and water vapour below[[File:Solar_charcoal_006.jpg|thumb|180px|Pyrex bowls trap heat stop wind loss]] 200 C unless the lid is very tight..
 
: Wipe the pyrex bowl lid to remove moisture and soot if its building up on the inside, before it gets too hot to handle.
  +
: Over 200 C approx. the wood is '''carbonizing'''.
 
: The time and temperature needed to turn the entire contents to charcoal depend on the wood used, the size of the sticks and the solar variables like cloud cover.
 
: The time and temperature needed to turn the entire contents to charcoal depend on the wood used, the size of the sticks and the solar variables like cloud cover.
  +
: Over 400 C approx. the wood which is now charcoal ignites and burns to ash.
: Best to leave one set up for a whole day first time. .
 
  +
: Best to leave one set up for a whole day first time, with enough mirror capacity to get over 200 C for a couple of hours, but less than what it would take to set it alight. Same as with cooking food, you're cooking the wood.
 
: This is the solar pyrolysis process.
 
: This is the solar pyrolysis process.
: The wood doesn't create embers when there is no air flow in the tin.
+
: The wood doesn't create embers, when there is no air flow in the tin, there isn't enough oxygen for it to burn, and under 400 C it is less likely to ignite. .
: Sit an oven thermometer on top of the tin, so you can see the temp climb.
+
: Sit an oven thermometer on top of the tin under the pyrex, so you can see the temp climb.
 
: Remove tin from pyrex bowls in the evening or next morning, when cooled.[[File:Solar_charcoal_009.jpg|thumb|Solar Cooker
 
: Remove tin from pyrex bowls in the evening or next morning, when cooled.[[File:Solar_charcoal_009.jpg|thumb|Solar Cooker
 
2 mirrors and aluminium reflector base ]]
 
2 mirrors and aluminium reflector base ]]

Revision as of 06:52, 10 October 2012

Garden 059

Moss garden fighting smog at home

Solar cooked charcoal PET bottle Moss Garden Kids Project
Moss fights back against smog.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22313-scattering-moss-can-restore-key-carbon-sink.html
Step back in time to before flowering plants to help the planet recover from urban smog.

PET MOSS Smog Remediation Recipe

Zeolite, charcoal, moss, rainwater, PET bottle.

Helen 1633

zeolite and charcoal

Solar charcoal 008

Fill tin with dry wood

Moss has no roots, so feeds from the air.

Small airborne particles of dust and pollution are trapped by the moss.

Moss manages humidity during the day, as in a rainforest,

absorbing and releasing water vapour as it soaks up water, and dries out.

The moss builds a mound above the waterline in the PET bottle.

The charcoal and zeolite mix needs to be level and even with the edge of hole.

SOLAR CHARCOAL COOKER

Pack dry sticks in a metal tin as tightly as possible.
Heat wood in the closed tin to approx. 300 degrees Centigrade in a solar cooker.
(Somewhere between 200 C for a couple of hours and 400 C for half an hour will do).

There is a good explanation of the overall benefits of turning woodchips or other biomass such as corn cobs to charcoal on the .Solar Fire open source web page

http://www.solarfire.org/Solar-Charcoal

The wood will give off smoke and water vapour below
Solar charcoal 006

Pyrex bowls trap heat stop wind loss

200 C unless the lid is very tight..
Wipe the pyrex bowl lid to remove moisture and soot if its building up on the inside, before it gets too hot to handle.
Over 200 C approx. the wood is carbonizing.
The time and temperature needed to turn the entire contents to charcoal depend on the wood used, the size of the sticks and the solar variables like cloud cover.
Over 400 C approx. the wood which is now charcoal ignites and burns to ash.
Best to leave one set up for a whole day first time, with enough mirror capacity to get over 200 C for a couple of hours, but less than what it would take to set it alight. Same as with cooking food, you're cooking the wood.
This is the solar pyrolysis process.
The wood doesn't create embers, when there is no air flow in the tin, there isn't enough oxygen for it to burn, and under 400 C it is less likely to ignite. .
Sit an oven thermometer on top of the tin under the pyrex, so you can see the temp climb.
Remove tin from pyrex bowls in the evening or next morning, when cooled.
Solar charcoal 009

Solar Cooker 2 mirrors and aluminium reflector base

When you open the cooled tin the heat from the sun has turned the sticks to charcoal.
You can do a drawing with them, and/or the following project.
Solar cooked charcoal retains the tar in the tin and on the charcoal, making it a bit sticky to handle. As the temperature increases the stickiness decreases. Many Australian seed pods such as gumnuts and banksias, are germinated by fire, so putting them in the solar cooker will result in seedlings in the PET moss garden.
Charcoal improves the soils ability to grow plants AND captures carbon dioxide, it is cabon sequestration.
You can help cool the planet by putting charcoal in the soil.
Terra preta owes its name to its very high charcoal content, and was made by adding a mixture of charcoal, bone, and manure to the otherwise relatively infertile Amazonian soil. It is very stable and remains in the soil for thousands of years. Its called Biochar in English speaking countries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biochar

PET bottle guerrilla garden

Just crush the smaller pieces of charcoal in the tin a little bit, add zeolite and rainwater, stir..

PET bottle = Soft Coke or soft drink bottle.

Cut a hatch or hole in the body of the PET bottle.
Inside put your mixture of charcoal, zeolite and rainwater.
Top with moss from round the garden, not off concrete, off the soil or the shady side of a tree!
Garden 058

: Moss and zeolite are both hydrophilic, they love water.

The PET bottle will create a mini micro climate, which will form condensation inside the bottle to run down to the moss.
While the moss is getting established it would be ideal if the PET bottles are close to a pond, in a greenhouse, or shady place. Water them with rainwater when it begins to dry out.
In a dry zone your Moss PET bottle can have a hatch opening, or use a wide mouth bottle to begin with, placing the moss with chopsticks.. Close the lid, your moss can go a couple of weeks with the lid closed, in semi or full shade.
Helen 1636
Tie your Moss PET bottle on a wire fence in partial shade, or the shady side of a building.
Hang square shape PET bottles through a fence or railing, tying the lids or handles together.
Check the moss to see if its soft and green each day. If it has drived out spray it with rainwater from a spray bottle.
In arid areas the PET bottle can be used with just the cap taken off once a week when watered.
In high rainfall areas the PET bottles can also be used with the cap taken off once a week, to stop mosquito larvae germinating in them.
Seedlings and grasses that pop up can be transplanted out to tubes or into the ground nearby.
Charcoal is also a natural bioremediation tool to trap nutrients and pollution particles. Moss grows well on charcoal. Moss eats smog, removing fine particles from the air. Its the air equivalent of a fish tank filter, which sometimes uses zeolite also.

This Zeolite Charcoal Moss recipe is useful for Guerrilla Gardening sites alongside busy roads in industrial areas, in shady places, on railings and walls that don't get much sunlight.

These PET bottles can be put on window sills on the shady side of the street, on balconies, or stuck through balcony and stair railings. A few of these will help get that 'Rainforest' clean air happening.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_Gardeners

Chernobyl moss

Learning from Chernobyl

Chernobyl 25 years after the nuclear reactor accident has bioaccumulation of radiation in the moss, and in the forest. It won't go away for 250 years, so our kids, grandkids and great grandkids are gong to have to know about where the radiation is in the enviroment, how to avoid it, how to deal with it, or else there won't be a 4th generation. It will take up to 30 generations of avoiding contamination in humans before they will be safe from genetic damage.

www.losapos.com/chernobyl

The 2010 study on urban air across Europe below explains how Moss bioaccummulates..

Dragana Popovic, Dragana Todorovic, Mira Anicic, Milica Tomasevic, Jelena Nikolic and Jelena Ajtic (2010). Trace Elements and Radionuclides in Urban Air Monitored by Moss and Tree Leaves, Air Quality, Ashok Kumar (Ed.), ISBN: 978-953-307-131-2, InTech, Available from:
http://www.intechopen.com/books/air-quality/biomonitoring-of-trace-elements-and-radionuclides-in-urban-air

Mushrooms and fungi bioaccummulate the most, then animals that feed on them. Some moulds and fungi use the radioactive energy to grow inside the core of the blown up reactor.



PET Project Results

Solar charcoal 013

UNCANNY TERRAIN Film about Fukushima

The PET bottle moss will bioaccumulate smog particles, and should be disposed of in an appropriate Council waste stream, when the project is completed, or when the PET bottle is full of moss.
If you are living in an area where there has been radioactive fallout, your moss will accumulate radioactive particles.
If fungi or mushrooms grow in the PET bottle DO NOT EAT THEM.
Solar charcoal 016

Guerrilla Garden Pepper shaker nuclear reactor on a lean

=== ZEOLITE use in Japan===
Zeolite is a natural bioremediation tool to trap heavy metals, radiation particles. It is used in Fukushima on the fields and in the town to rehabilitate the soil.
Zeolite has a lattice of positively charged particles that trap smog particles, and radiation particles FROM THE AIR.
Zeolite is used in disposable nappies and is hydrophilic, it attracts water molecules.
Fukushima-diary has an update on the radiation fallout situation in Japan.
http://fukushima-diary.com/2012/08/20000-bqbody-from-a-man-in-fukushima/
Radioactive smog is circling the world every 40 days.
http://fukushima-diary.com/2012/06/radioactive-particles-circulate-the-world-taking-40-days/

FUKUSHIMA Organic Farmers continue to fight on.

Here are some recent images of the Children and farmers of Fukushima.
A film in English is being made about their situation, and their determination to carry on.
Bioremediation of fields with zeolite and special organic mycoremediation with fungi and composting is being tried by the farmers, so that the micro organisms consumer the radioactive isotopes and render them neutralised in the soil, so the plants are less radioactive. They are trying very hard to make their community safe, with plantings of sunflowers, mustard and other accumulator plants.
Here is the link to the film which is still in production at the moment.
Helen 1615

Uncanny Terrain Film 2012 Children of Fukushima Organic Farming

http://uncannyterrain.com/blog/ http://www.uncannyterrain.com


Please get in touch if this sort of project is of interest to you
Helen Dawson hdawsond@yahoo.com.au

--Hdawsond (talk) 01:48, September 25, 2012 (UTC)--Hdawsond (talk) 01:48, September 25, 2012 (UTC)--Hdawsond (talk) 01:48, September 25, 2012 (UTC)