REVIEW OF FLUID DYNAMICS OF PLANTS

 October 28, 2007

 Charles M Redman

 Retired, White Sands Missile Range, Test and Evaluation

 Retired, New Mexico State University, Solar Energy Institute

                                                  

                                                                                  ABSTRACT

Five years ago I learned professionals did not have a consensus on how fluids circulated through trees and other plants.  I began a part time search talking with many professionals, reading texts and reports, and extracting information out of my own background.  I learned there were no means within trees for circulating liquids of any type. I was project engineer on a project, performed at NMSU in the early 1980’s in support of the Pacific Northwest Laboratories to demonstrate a technique for freezing water using sunlight and adsorption material.  During this project I learned water vapor entering an adsorbent does not go in as either a vapor or a liquid.  It entered with the energy of liquid water but since one hydrogen atom of each molecule adsorbed (attached) to a surface it wasn’t attached to a second oxygen.  This caused each molecule to operate independent of it’s neighbor which is the criteria of a gas.  Gas-like, inputs at the root, conversions in the leaves, cellular construction all control the fluid flow.  It becomes very simple.   Adsorption and dispersion like a gas is the only option available for fluid flow in plants so must work.

FINDINGS

References:   

1. Wright, Karen, Antigravity Plumbing, Sept. 2002, Discover Magazine.

2. Wright, Karen, The Minus Touch, March 2003, Discover Magazine.

3, Nobel, Park S., 1999, Physicochemical and Environmental Plant Physiology, pages 52-57.

4. Redman, C.M., 1985, Experimental Testing of Cooling by Low Pressure Adsorption in a Zeolite, report for Pacific Northwest Laboratories, pages 1-3,8,21

5.   Redman, C.M., Isotherms of Water in X13 Zeolite Adsorption Material, compilation of graphs by the Linde Company.

6. 6.Canny, Martin J., 1995, A New Theory for the Ascent of Sap - Cohesion Supported by Tissue Pressure in Annals of Botany 75: 343-350.
   

(contact the author at the email address below for copies of the references)

After reading the two documents referenced above by Karen Wright, I went to New Mexico State University and talked to several friends who worked in Agriculture and I was directed to a particular professor.  This professor was very good to me, loaning her book,  reference 3,  and giving me numerous copies of reports.  I was then referred to other professors.  Over the past five years I have read many reports, talked with anyone who would listen, and some who didn’t want to listen.

First:  I was told there was minus 10 Bar pressure at the top of trees that lifted or pulled the water up.

Second: I was told transpiration lifted the water.

Third:  I was told it was capillary action.

Fourth: I read there was a daily cycle of squeezing that somehow in conjunction with an elaborate valving system forced the water up.

Fifth:  I was told there were an infinite number of squeezing devices along with a multiplicity of valves that moved water through very small capillaries between the cells.  Each would work somewhat like our heart.

Sixth.     I read it was osmosis.

Seventh. I read it was cohesion supported by tissue pressure.

Eight.     I was told the water was pulled up by capillary growth.

It seemed that each report I read and each person I talked to had a different idea on how fluids circulate through trees.  The one point in common in all conversations, and all the literature I was given was that fluids in plants were liquid.  Everyone I talked to was sure the fluids were liquid.  Otherwise beliefs differed greatly.  I demonstrated that at well under minus one bar pressure (-0.8 BAR at 68 F) water spalled off the top surface and couldn’t be lifted.  According to vapor tables at a little lower pressure and depending on temperature the top surface evaporates.  So water can’t be lifted without a bucket.  As every rocket scientist knows every action has an equal and opposite reaction so transpiration pushes, not lifts.  I believe capillary action is involved but all the literature I read referred to surface tension or the angle at the interface with the capillary surface as forces.  However, surfaces are entirely passive and have no force that can move water at right angles to the surface.  Any system of squeezing liquid water both directions through an infinite number of very small channels is far beyond my comprehension and would make a Boeing 747 seem simple so I can’t comment on those.  I read the report on tissue pressure but again we are dealing with fantastic complexities.

I found Canny’s report, reference 6, interesting in that over a dozen plant physiologists tried to measure tree pressures related to liquid water or osmotic columns and they kept finding pressures showing the tree fluids were adsorptive or gas-like not liquid but they refused to believe their data.

None of the reports came up with adsorption to surfaces but how can water not be adsorbed?  I did find some professors who believed that water adsorbed into roots and I don’t understand why they thought adsorption stopped at the roots.  Physics professors I have talked with were familiar with adsorption and even used it.  Chemical engineering professors I talked with, knew that adsorbed water was different but I’m not sure they thought it was a high density-low energy gas.  They used the principal all the time to make chemical conversions at low pressures and low temperatures.  When  researching the library I found that adsorption and catalysis were both in the same reports.

References 1 and 2 were prepared by Karen Wright after she had talked to many plant physiologists.  She found there seemed no consensus as to how fluids moved up through trees.

Dr. Nobel wrote a long paragraph on water in reference 3.  He wrote that cohesion of water molecules had been measure to -300 bars.  I think this was measured using a pressure bomb.  However, the pressure bomb measures the capillary action where the force is inversely in proportion to the radius of the capillary tubes.  The smaller the radius is squeezed the tighter it holds the water.  The radius at the open end of the test item is very large and according to the capillary equation the water shouldn’t come out at all unless the capillary structures are destroyed.  Nobel related the angle of the interface between the fluid surface and the capillary walls to the upward force.  He didn’t explain the driving force or where it came from and only referred to the angle which is the result of a driving force which seemed unknown to him.  Dr Nobel did not seem aware that fungi within the capillaries have a very small radius.  Since Nobel didn’t know what the driving force was, he wrote of results only.  He didn’t explain how a force perpendicular to the surface, wetting, caused water to move up the surface.

Reference 4 is the report I wrote for the Pacific Northwest Laboratories in 1985 giving the results of design, testing, and analysis of a system for freezing water by means of adsorption material and sunlight.  It was during this demonstration project I learned that adsorbed water, at pressures and temperatures found in vapor in air, acted like a gas.  That is, by lowering the temperature and increasing the pressure more water can be stored in a given amount of adsorbent.  The molecules were vibrating far too much to be liquid water.  Adsorption forces can be far greater than cohesion forces thereby causing water molecules to act individually instead of in connections to other molecules.  High energy causes liquids to lose cohesion and operate as a gas.  Adsorption (adhesion) also causes cohesion to break, so it acts like a low energy-high density gas.

When a water molecule approaches a root fiber the strong adsorption factor pulls a hydrogen atom into the root dragging the whole molecule into the root.  The molecule then becomes positively charged.  There is now an analogue with electron flow.  The flow is by positive charges instead of negative charges.  Every molecule entering a root gives the whole volume of water in the tree an immediate push.  This ionized gas like flow then makes all chemical conversions at low pressures and temperatures easy.  This is referred to as catalysis.  Because a water molecule is electrostaticaly attached through a hydrogen atom flow is essentially frictionless.  Water acting like an ionized gas flow explains all factors related to water in plants.

Reference 5 is a series of constant temperature curves plotted against pressure and the amount of water stored in X13 zeolite adsorption material manufactured by Linde Company for use in breaking petroleum into different grades of fluids.  It also works with water.  These isotherms show that at 100 degrees F and 0.06 psia, 100 pounds of the adsorbent can store 20.1 pounds of water while at 76 degrees F and 0.45 psia it can store 26.4 pounds of water.  This is a differential of 6.3 pounds of water.  This shows that by lowering temperature and increasing pressure the adsorbent can store more water in the same container.  The only explanation for this is the water molecules are vibrating far too much to be liquid water so it is gas-like.  It is believed the adsorption materials in plants are far superior to those manufactured for the oil industry.  As gas-like, water can flow anyplace within a plant only by difference in molecular density.  The adsorption coefficient can be negative to very highly positive, depending on the type of material, and it can be far greater than cohesion between water molecules.  A hydrogen atom  in water near a root then jumps to the root dragging a molecule into the root.  Water entering the roots immediately moves up through the live material of the plant to keep concentration equal within the confines of gravity.  The polysaccharides formed in the leaves also move into the whole plant to  even out the fluid density.  Every action within the plant hereby controls the flow of the fluids.   Fluid dynamics, thus, becomes very simple.

SUMMARY

There are no means for liquid water to circulate throughout trees and other plants.  Adsorbed water, acting like a gas, readily disperses throughout trees and other plants.  Fungi, found in and around all cellular structures, makes an ideal system for transmission of all fluids.  This opens up a great new way to improve plants and adapt them to desert and other conditions.  This can be a one step operation by extracting fungi from a plant with superior adsorption characteristics and inserting it into a plant that needs those characteristics.  Adsorbed water, acting like a gas, always flows to less dense regions in trees.  It requires no external forces,  no complex pumping and valving system.  Points of fluid input, chemical conversion,  and cellular growth all control fluid flow.  Adsorption and dispersion like a gas is the only fluid transmission option available to trees and other plants so must work.

Charles M Redman

Phone: 575-373-1221

Email: cmredman@zianet.com