Electromagnetic Water Treatment and Water Quality ...

Asian Journal of Water, Environment and Pollution, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 9-13.

Electromagnetic Water Treatment and Water Quality Effect on Germination, Rooting and Plant Growth on Flower Saim Ozdemir*, Omer Hulusi Dede and Gulgun Koseoglu Environmental Engineering Department, Sakarya University 54187 Sakarya, Turkey * [email protected] Received March 26, 2005; revised and accepted June 22, 2005 Abstract: The effects of electromagnetic treatment of hard-alkaline well water on water quality and flower seed germination, rooting of cuttings and plant growth have been studied, compared with natural well water, rain water, distilled water and tap water. According to the germination test, water quality has not significantly affected germination percentage and shoots length, but effects were significant on root length and root dry weight. Electromagnetic treated water increased the root dry weight by 11%. In the rooting experiment only root dry weight of African violet and Coleus were affected by different water supply and electromagnetically treated water increased root dry weight by 10% compared to natural well water. Electromagnetic treatment decreased both water alkalinity, hardness, pH, EC and growing media pH, Ca, Mg and lime deposition but those not significantly effected plant growth, branching, flower number/plant and shoot dry weight as compared to natural well water. Because of relatively short vegetation period and low pH of peat, detrimental effects of hard-alkaline water on flower growth were not observed. However, relatively higher mineral concentration in natural well water and electromagnetic treated water increased the plant height, branch number/plant and shoot dry weight, but not flower number/plant as compared to distilled water and rain water. Key words: Electromagnetic water treatment, germination, rooting, growth.

Introduction In electromagnetic water conditioning, by passing water through a magnetic field, the calcium and magnesium ions are altered in such a way that they loose their ability to cause scale. Although not clearly understood, wellestablished scientific data present the positive effects of physically conditioned water used in various industry and domestic consumptions over 100 years. Unlike chemical water softening, magnetic treatment has no direct effect on water chemistry but alter the morphology and adhesion of calcium carbonate scale. Although the water is not technically soft, it has the useful properties *

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of soft water. No magnesium or calcium is removed from the water by magnetic treatment. Many designs of commercial magnetic treatment devices are available; some use electromagnets, whilst others use single or arrays of permanent magnets. Upon reviewing the literature, the antiscale effect resulting from changes in crystallization behaviour promotes bulk solution precipitation rather than formation of adherent scale on the walls of distribution pipes and other equipment. These particles are carried away by the water flow and can be eliminated by removing or filtering the resulting calcareous mud. It is observed by several researchers that magnetic treatment influence the precipitation of calcite to aragonite ratio (Wang et al., 1997). Magnetically treated water favoured aragonite