extracting power from plants?

[Koen1]

Hi Koen,
I just noticed this thread.

Redwood trees in northern California US, acidify the soil. (so much so that their own seedlings can't survive)
The charge around a redwood tree is palpable to the human especially to the sensitive ones out to a radius of about 10 feet.
Maybe you would enjoy a trip to northern CA this coming summer.

well I'm not sure about this summer, but it's not a bad idea to check it out sometime...

meanwhile I was thinking of looking for some very small conifer species,
a dwarf/bonsai version of a christmas tree basically and sticking
that in an iron pot with a carbon rod next to it. see what that does...
of course, if we're talking acidification I guess we'll need to wait some time
for the soil to actually change ph before we can expect to get any such
effect... but that's a guess.

[triffid]

oak tree leaves dump a lot of acid into the soil too.So much that other plants can't grow there.Maybe
someone could try making a battery there too.triffid

[ResinRat2]

I wonder if the goal would be to generate the electricity based off the plant's usage of sunlight and water only? No minerals, no acid, no electrolytes. Looking in the very specific goal of generating electricity from how a plant uses the abundant and renewable resources of these two inputs. Stealing just enough of that energy so the plant is not stressed or injured in any way.

As far as wires or electrodes to be used, I did a quick search on the makeup of the wires used in pacemakers. This should be non-toxic to plants just as well as to humans. Some pacemakers use teflon-coated stainless steel wires embedded in the heart's surface. So perhaps this would be the way to go? Stainless must be less toxic than copper, and perhaps a very fine diameter wire would be the way to go?

Just throwing out an idea. I might try it myself just out of curiosity. Throw a couple of ss wires into a tree or bush and see how the plant grows and gives off current. Would it be enough to light an LED? Imagine an LED in every plant in a person's house. I know my mom's house would be lit BRIGHT with the number of plants she has. (LOL).

Nice idea Koen1.

[Pirate88179]

@ Koen 1:

Way back in the early days of our earth battery experiments I decided to check my tree for electricity using the Tree Array pictured.  This is simply 7 iron nails (galvanized/zinc coated) tapped about 1/8" into the tree.  I stripped copper wire in the middle to allow me to wrap around each nail to make contact.

Results: 1.25 vdc

Now, here is the funny thing.  I was showing a friend this the other day and he could not believe it.  I got the above numbers by using my carbon rod (+) as a "ground".  My tree is negative!  you can take the - probe of the meter to the tree array, and stab the + probe lightly into the dirt and get .7vdc.  My carbon rod is planted close by so I hooked to that and got the 1.25 vdc.  So, my tree is - and my "ground" is +.  This goes against everything I have read about electricity.

A quick note to all that will jump on me for destroying the trees: (This happened in the earth battery topic) I am NOT hurting the tree at all.  the nails are not in deep and can be pulled out by hand when I want to.  The iron nails are not harming the tree.  I love nature and would never do anything to harm it.

Believe it or not, there is a recent patent granted on just this type of device. (It is listed in the earth battery topic somewhere way back)  It is designed to recharge electric cars from any tree so as to not adding to the load on the grid if we go all electric cars.  Funny thing is, in their patent, their device only gets about .7 vdc.  Stabbing a carbon (+) rod into the ground made all of the difference.

I just thought I would share this experiment with you.  Think of the energy in a forest!  Just sitting there.

Bill         PS:  you can test any tree with just the meter probes, one in the tree (-) and one into the earth(+)

[Koen1]

@ResinRat: well, yeah, that's sort of the idea; to use non-toxic electrodes in or on
the plant, that somehow link into the biochemical processes going on in the plant.
That would be one electrode, and the other electrode would be something in the
ground the plant is rooted in, that interacts with the soil by absorbing or emitting
charge, either in the form of electrons or or ions. It is conceivable that ions from that
electrode dissolve and are absorbed by the plant as nutrients, which would be even
better.
I was thinking about plants that acidify the soil because that could give a natural
source of acid and obviously might be used for galvanic reactions... But that is
only one approach. Sticking one electrode in a plant and one in a soluble nutrient
stick might work as another approach... And there are other possible ways, but
those are increasingly unlikely to work or even harmful to the plant.


@Bill: Great post! Thanks.
I remember your previous post(s) about the "tree array".
If I recall correctly you said the nails were only in the outer bark,
they did not enter into the living tissue of the tree?
That's quite interesting... it would mean that we may not even have to actually stick
electrodes in the plant, but simply attach them to the outer bark...
And if the carbon rod worked so well... the idea of adding a few other elements
to this rod in the right concentrations could at least make it into a sort of nutrient
stick for the tree, and perhaps even boost output a bit
Definately worth some simple experiments!
Now, this output you got of 1.25V, was that potential difference only or was it
really a dc current, and if so did you test the amperage?
Thanks again, good stimulus to do some field work