nanoclay

Como convertir un desierto en tierra fértil utilizando nanotecnología: NanoClay. Fuente: Fotos de Juan José Ibáñez

Pues sí, ¡señoras y señores!, una empresa noruega e investigadores de la talla de Kristian and Ole Morten Olesen (más vale “live” que “morten” y “moros que cristianos”) dicen haber descubierto el secreto de cómo convertir los yermos desiertos del mundo en suelos fértiles, en tan solo una pocas horas, o a veces un poquito más (será cuando cambie el clima “of course”). ¡Se acabó el hambre en el mundo! ¡Viva la madre que les parió!. Desde luego no podemos competir en materia de emprendimiento con estos monstruos escandinavos. ¿Sera verdad? Tras tal descomunal descubrimiento os recomiendo que leáis la noticia con la que terminamos este post, aunque también el debate que suscitó en la red profesional  LinkedIn tras anunciarse este notición. ¡Mama mía!. ¡Que varapalo!. Obviamente el procedimiento se encuentra patentado, por lo que primero deberemos comprarnos unas parcelas de desierto por unos centavos, luego añadir un poquito del elixir mágico patentado y a disfrutar los millones que pronto caerán del cielo a nuetras manos. ¡Pues va a ser que no!. Ya no hace falta jugar a la lotería.

El procedimiento se enmarca en la iniciativa global que, con dicen en un rotativo español debiera ser un “tremending topic“ y cuyos adalides son, sin lugar alguna, “emprendedores caraduras sin fronteras”, Este holding  va ganando día a día terreno a los esfuerzos llevados a cabo por honrados aunque torpes ciudadanos emprendedores, carentes de tal sublime ¡inteligentia!. Todo consiste en echar al suelo desértico un tipo patentado de arcillas trituradas y procesadas hasta convertirlas en nanopartículas que a la postre mezcladas con agua recubrirán las arenas del desierto convirtiéndolas en una máquina trepidante de captar agua y nutrientes.  Y así en pocas horas de desierto a vergel. Eso sí hay que añadir un poco del líquido elemento, más o menos la mitad de lo normal ¿Y de dónde sale?.

Ya en el debate se comenta de todo: ¿y la materia orgánica? ¿Y el agua?, ¿No arrastrará el riego las nanopartículas hacia ls profundidades, fuera el alcance de las raíces delas plantas?. Y el viento?, etc. etc. ¿La erosión eólica terminaría llevándose por los aires tal asombrosa alfombra/capa fértil?  Pero seguidamente hacer los cálculos, no por metros cuadrados, sino por hectáreas. Efectivamente alguien se haría más multimillonario que Bill Gates, en poco tiempo: ¡la empresa que lo patentó! Pero además, ¿de donde extraeríamos tanta arcilla para pavimentar los desiertos de verde?.

En la nota de prensa, tras una llamada de atención sobre los devastadores efectos de la desertificación y su inexorable avance, como consecuencia del calentamiento climático y bla, bla, bla, la compañía directamente pone en su punto de mira en California, en donde una prolongada sequía y la sobreexplotación de los acuíferos, se encuentra causando estragos en las producciones agrarias. Claro está, tomn como ejemplo,  un territorio en donde hay mucha pasta, ya que los moradores del desierto de Namibia……..  Y aun así…… Quizás en algún jardín, a falta de materia orgánica mucho más barata……

Pero Michał Prądzyński dio inmediatamente en el clavo al hacer los cálculos que expongo a continuación.

1kg of clay per square meter equals 100 000 clay kg per hectare.  100 metric TONS! 40 liters of water per meter equals – 4 000 m3 of water spreaded per hectare…

One question – how are you going to achieve it in a practical way? Just the clay, forget the water, is a HUGE operation and cost to transport, 100 metric tons for hectare. And one more thing – why no organic matter?

Os dejo con la noticia ya que me parto de la risa. Lo dicho “emprendedores caraduras sin fronteras”

Juan José Ibáñez

Desert Control to make the desert bloom

Liquid NanoClay, a mixture of water and clay that is mixed in a patented process and used to transform sandy desert soils into fertile ground

in: Science & Technology News

Desert Control, a Norwegian start-up, is looking to turn deserts into a blooming, fertile ground. What normally takes 7 – 15 years to transform soil to fertile land, they have managed to do in just 7 hours.

Through a combination of climate change, drought, overgrazing and other human activities, desertification across the world is on the march. It’s a process defined by the UN as “land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid regions”. Given that around 40 per cent of the Earth’s land surface is occupied by drylands – home to around two billion people – the potential for desertification to impact the planet is huge. A recent report from the Economics of Land Degradation Initiative claimed that it’s a problem costing the world as much as US$10.6tn every year – approximately 17 per cent of global gross domestic product.

The refugee crisis in Europe has highlighted the difficulties that arise when large numbers of people migrate. However, the numbers arriving from countries such as Syria, Lebanon and Eritrea pale in comparison to those that could be forced into exile by changing climate conditions. According to the UN’s Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), the process could displace as many as 50 million people over the next decade.

But one Norwegian start-up is developing a technology to wage a frontline battle with desertification. Desert Control is a Norwegian company set up by Kristian and Ole Morten Olesen, alongside chief operating officer Andreas Julseth. It was recently awarded first prize at ClimateLaunchpad, a clean-tech business competition that attracted more than 700 entries from 28 countries across Europe. The product that earned Desert Control top honours was Liquid NanoClay, a mixture of water and clay that is mixed in a patented process and used to transform sandy desert soils into fertile ground.

 “The mixing process splits the clay particles into individual flakes and adds air bubbles on both sides of the flakes,” Ole Morten Olesen, CEO of Desert Control, told The Engineer. “The mix is then spread over the land and allowed to saturate down to root level – about 40-60cm deep. This requires around 40 litres of water and 1kg of clay per square metre.”

El proceso de mezcla rompe las partículas de arcilla en forma de copos individuales y añade burbujas de aire a ambos lados los copos, «Ole Morten Olesen, director general de control del desierto, dijo el ingeniero. «La mezcla A continuación se extiende sobre la tierra y se deja saturar a nivel de la raíz – alrededor de 40-60cm de profundidad. Esto requiere alrededor de 40 litros de agua y 1 kg de arcilla por metro cuadrado

Olesen explained that his father Kristian, Desert Control’s chief technical officer, has been working on the process behind Liquid NanoClay since 2008. The treatment gives sand particles a nanostructured clay coating, completely changing their physical properties and allowing them to bind water. The process, which does not involve any chemical agents, can change poor-quality sandy soils into high-yield agricultural land.

El tratamiento brinda a las partículas de arena de un revestimiento de arcilla nanoestructurado, cambiando completamente sus propiedades físicas y que les permite unirse agua. El proceso, que no implica la presencia de agentes químicos, puede cambiar los suelos arenosos de baja calidad en tierras agrícolas de alto rendimiento.

According to Desert Control, virgin desert soils treated with Liquid NanoClay produced a yield four times greater than untreated land, using the same amount of seeds and fertiliser, and less than half the amount of water. It found that Liquid NanoClay acts as a catalyst for Mycorrhizal fungi when nourishment is available, with the fungi responsible for the increased yield.

Clay is a fundamental component of productive arable land, acting as a water-holder, providing elasticity, and allowing non-clay elements to bind to the soil. In the past, adding clay to dry land in order to improve its agricultural value has involved tilling clay into the soil. This requires large volumes of clay and substantial amounts of manual labour. The process of transforming sandy soil into fertile land can take between seven and 15 years. By comparison, Liquid NanoClay takes just seven hours to saturate into the land.

The water and clay is mixed on site using the patented process, then traditional irrigation systems such as sprinklers or water wagons are used to spread it across the sandy soil. The individual clay flakes bind to the surface of the sand particles with a Van der Waals binding, significantly increasing the ability of the soil to hold water and nutrients.

The cost of treatment per hectare is US$4,800, and requires a 15-20 per cent retreatment after four or five years if the land is tilled. If the soil is untilled, the treatment lasts for longer. Converting a piece of desert the size of a rugby pitch into fertile land for this cost seems like a pretty good deal.

In just seven hours the soil is totally transformed,” said Ole Morten. “We use existing irrigation systems to apply the Liquid NanoClay, removing the need to till the land and use much greater volumes of water.”

The performance data for Liquid NanoClay is based on field tests that were conducted at the Agricultural Research Centre (ARC) in Ismailia in Egypt. White pepper was planted in test fields containing dry sandy soil. Fields treated with Liquid NanoClay gave an additional two months of harvest, compared to the fields that were untreated.

Following the initial harvest, the plants were then left without irrigation over winter and spring, when new plants were due to be sown. However, the original crops were found to be in such good condition that they could be used for another season.

“When we returned the following season, we were surprised that the pepper plants were looking so healthy,” said Ole Morten. “We had expected to have to replant, as they had been left over winter and spring without irrigation. But the old plants were in good enough shape that we could use them again in the next season.”

Unsurprisingly, some of the most vulnerable areas to desertification are in north and central Africa, around the edges of the Sahara. Other regions under threat include large parts of China and Mongolia, as the Gobi encroaches into the eastern parts of the Eurasian Steppe and the farmland it supports, as well as several regions in Australia.

When pitching Desert Control at ClimateLaunchpad, chief operating officer Andreas Julseth also focused in on the particular business opportunity available in Central Valley, California. Making up around 14 per cent of California’s total land area, the valley is one of the world’s most productive agricultural regions. However, since 2011, the state has been in the grip of one of the worst droughts on record.

In 2014, the agricultural sector in Central Valley lost 165,000 hectares to fallowing,” Julseth recently told the ClimateLaunchpad audience. “Fallowing means they ploughed the land but didn’t sow any seeds, because there simply wasn’t enough water available to sustain the land. They estimate this had a US$2.2bn impact on the agricultural industry.”

In the desperate search for water, farmers in California have been digging ever deeper, employing oil-drilling equipment to reach the disappearing aquifers. Not only is this expensive, it is eradicating an ancient natural resource in a classic tragedy of the commons. Acting out of rational self-interest, the farmers are draining a communal water resource dry. Julseth believes Liquid NanoClay can help avert the impending tragedy.

“I believe that farmers will flock to us as soon as they see that they can reduce their dependency on water by at least 50 per cent,” he said. “Put it this way – if they were using our product, the present drought would no longer be a problem. I also believe that land developers will use the opportunity to buy dry land, have us treat it, and then be able to sell it for eight to 10 times the purchasing price. Because that’s the reality now – dry land goes for one-tenth what fertile land goes for.”

If Desert Control can successfully get Liquid NanoClay to market, the potential of the technology is enormous, with implications for fragile environments around the globe and the populations that inhabit them. Along with the testing that took place in Egypt, additional third-party verification is taking place at the Faculty of Natural Sciences at Imperial College London.

Algunos comentarios jugosos

1kg of clay per square meter equals 100 000 clay kg per hectare.  100 metric TONS! 40 liters of water per meter equals – 4 000 m3 of water spreaded per hectare…

One question – how are you going to achieve it in a practical way? Just the clay, forget the water, is a HUGE operation and cost to transport, 100 metric tons for hectare. And one more thing – why no organic matter?

Károly Tatárvári I think, if topsoil dryed once a time, the wind carry away the NanoClay particles. Or how much the crust height, which the NanoClay maked, after when we are using this? Because the wind erosion is the top soils erodible movement!?

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2 comentarios

  1. Una opotunidad para politicos ignorantes o cuando menos sin escrúpulos, para engrosar sus cuentas bancarias

  2. Amigos felicitaciones y realmente esto es una prueba de que nosotros los humanos podemos desarrollar tecnologias alternativas que no dañen nuestro planeta. personalmente esto genera mucha felicidad y es una señal de aliento para la supervivencia humana.Porque muy pronto erradicar el hambre en el planeta y gracias a ustedes.Lo unico que deseo es que esto no sea manipulado ni que tampoco genere monopolios y pueda ser compartido sin egoismo alguno.Deseo algun correo para poder contactarme con ustedes y ver el modo de obtener el PRODUCTO y ponerlo en practica,,,ya que cuento con algunos terrenos en una zona arida que es Nazca,lugar de mi procedencia y lugar donde quiero desarrollar mi proyecto agricola.Exitos y gracias nuevamente.

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