CO2 Eliminators
Prototype 1:
Prototype 2:
Prototype 3:
To implement our ideas we used our classroom as our laboratory. In our class, we custom built our first prototype to accomplish exactly what we wanted. We got two 10 gallon fish tanks, philodendron plants, spider plants, two empty 5-gallon water containers, compost (made by using coffee grinds,orange peels,dried leaves and phragmites, etc,), oxygen tubing, material to create a false bottom, (we made with plastic drop ceiling lighting cover) and our CO2 meter which were all provided by our school. We assembled it and took readings daily, measuring the level of CO2 before being pushed into the tanks, and after the plants could scrub the CO2 Unfortunately, due to the overly humid environment, or excess CO2, the spider plants were starting to die, and eventually the compost stopped producing CO2 because it dried up.
In an attempt to make our project even better we decided that by taking the data in a smaller contained area will give us even better results. Based on our research and availability, we chose three plants: mosquito plant, philodendron, and Spider plant. We planted each species in its own large mason jar. We wanted to see how each plant would react to being in an enclosed area. One jar had the mosquito plant, another had the philodendron, and the final one had the spider plant. This would allow us to measure individually and accurately, which plant would remove the most CO2 from the environment using a small scale model.
Jar Set Up:
We drilled two holes in each mason jars. One hole would be there so we could attach a tube that would connect into the bottle that contained the mixture of yeast,
sugar, and water that produced CO2. We used 200 ml of water, 20 ml of sugar, and 5 ml of yeast to create our CO2 solution. The other hole would allow us to attach an additional tube to take measurements from the jar after the CO2 had a chance to reach the plant. This way we could see the effect of plant respiration on the CO2 in each died. individual jar. Unfortunately, our ratio of CO2 overloaded the plants and they died.
After our prototype two we realized that we put too much yeast and sugar in our mixture so all of the CO2 killed the mosquito plant and the philodendron plant. The spider plant survived. We decided to redo the prototype two with less yeast and sugar. For this prototype we used 200mL of water, 15mL of sugar, and 2.5mL of yeast. This error also proves to people that too much carbon dioxide can harm our plants. To moisten the soil we used fish water to nourish the plants with minerals that can help sustain the plants during exposure to CO2.
Prototype 4:
After our prototype two we realized that we put too much yeast and sugar in our mixture so all of the CO2 killed the mosquito plant and the philodendron plant. The spider plant survived. We decided to redo the prototype two with less yeast and sugar. For this prototype we used 200mL of water, 15mL of sugar, and 2.5mL of yeast. This error also proves to people that too much carbon dioxide can harm our plants. To moisten the soil we used fish water to nourish the plants with minerals that can help sustain the plants during exposure to CO2.
Our 4th prototype was modeled after our third. We used the same sugar and yeast ratio to control inflow of CO2 to our mason jars. Again we tested spider plant, philodendron, and mosquito plant. We expanded our trials over 14 days and took two readings per day, morning and night. We took an average of the two readings for each day. Here are the results from those trials.
