Latest / Hydroponics Daily / Nanobubbles in Hydroponics
Transcript
- 0:00Hi, welcome back to Hydroponics Daily. Today we're going to talk about nanobubbles.
- 0:04So nanobubbles are, hence the name, nanoscale. They're about 100 to 200 nanometres in diameter.
- 0:11That's about 2,500 times smaller than a normal bubble.
- 0:15You might think that your bubble generator in your nutrient tank produces very
- 0:19small bubbles. You might have an air stone on the end of it.
- 0:22However, at best, these are micro-bubbles.
- 0:24Nanobubbles are very different in their behaviour and action and they are invisible to the naked eye.
- 0:31They are in tap water so when you take a glass of water out of the tap there
- 0:36will be nanobubbles in there.
- 0:37However they're used up over time so if you've got a recirculatory system the
- 0:41nanobubbles will be used up and that's why people are increasingly looking at
- 0:46nanobubble generators in hydroponics and in horticulture.
- 0:50So there are a number of companies that are exploring this and creating specific
- 0:55nanobubble generators.
- 0:57I think personally, you'd have to be a very large grower to use one of the very
- 1:01big nanopulble generators.
- 1:03However, smaller scale ones based on minerals like Feldspar,
- 1:07I think it is, they're being commercialized now.
- 1:09And so you might see them on sale in growth stores in the near future.
- 1:12In addition to just adding oxygen to the water surrounding the roots,
- 1:17they also have a surface charge on them.
- 1:19And it's thought that they could be good for clearing up algae and bacterial
- 1:22contaminations in nutrient tanks that that's what they're used for in livestock
- 1:26production at the moment they they clean up the the water that goes into cattle.
- 1:32Production and it's thought they could also have an effect on promoting
- 1:36good bacteria in the cattle's rumen as opposed
- 1:39to using things like antibiotics however there's an
- 1:42unknown there in that they've got a surface charge on these nanobubbles so
- 1:46could they potentially bring nutrients in or out
- 1:48of solution in hydroponic situations the question
- 1:51remains unanswered as yet as it's not been commercialized a
- 1:56lot as i say i was at a vertical farming conference this week and there were
- 2:02at least two companies looking at nanobubble generation so it's an area of hot
- 2:06topic and i expect the number of companies will increase in the next few years
- 2:10so watch this space when it comes to nanobubbles that has been hydroponics daily for today.