# Natural CO2 from air?



## Splash768 (Mar 29, 2011)

I'm just throwing this out there. Will there be enough CO2 for general plant growing if I just pump air continuously into a CO2 reactor and diffuse it into water? Basically I would be getting O2 and CO2, but is the amount of CO2 too little? 

I'm actually just trying to cheap out on my 2G nano that I plan to use to grow excess plants.


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

Splash768 said:


> I'm just throwing this out there. Will there be enough CO2 for general plant growing *if I just pump air continuously into a CO2 reactor and diffuse it into water?* Basically I would be getting O2 and CO2, but is the amount of CO2 too little?
> 
> I'm actually just trying to cheap out on my 2G nano that I plan to use to grow excess plants.


You mean an airstone? 

It's my understanding that CO2 escapes water faster than O2, so while an equilibrium will be established, it will have a lower concentration of CO2 than air.

I think it's largely unnecessary as you already have good water movement from power filters.

However, it's perfectly possible to get plant growth without CO2 injection. CO2 injection just speeds things along.


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## Darkblade48 (Jan 28, 2008)

Atmospheric air has approximately 4 ppm CO2. Ideally, water and air will have an equilibrium. 

If you have a heavily planted aqiarum, they will consume the CO2 very quickly. If you were to use an airstone to continously agitate the water, due to the lower concentration of CO2 in the aquarium water, CO2 from the atmosphere would diffuse into the aquarium.

However, I would not rely on CO2 diffusion in this manner to be able to satisfy the carbon needs of plants, especially in a highly lit aquarium.


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

Check out this article:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/01/co2-capture-from-air-for-fuel-or.html

I wonder how this works, and what form would the CO2 be in? It would be awesome if we can install this on the intake of an air pump and grab the CO2 from air!

The article says the target is 100$ a ton. Since a 10 lbs pressurized CO2 can last a year, that's less than $1 a year! (Assuming we can miniaturize this enough for home use, that is.)


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## Lee_D (Jun 11, 2010)

The best CO2 scrubber in the world was invented a very long time ago. It's called a plant.

Lee


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