How to CORRECTLY Extract Calcium from Egg Shells for Healthy Plants
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 ส.ค. 2023
- Your plants need calcium and If you think that crushing egg shells and putting them in soil is enough calcium for your tomatoes then you'd be wrong. It takes 2-5 years for egg shells to breakdown in the soil so here's a better way to do it.
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Loved this video. It was one of the best videos I have watched recently on youtube.
You can also do calculations on how much soluble calcium is in your end product, which helps dosing it as fertilizer. Short: 5% vinegar added to egg shells will lead to 1,67 gram soluble Calcium / liter.
Here will follow some chemistry:
The reaction is 2 CH3COOH + CaCO3 --> Ca+ (aq) + 2 (CH3COO-) (aq) + H2O (l) + CO2 (g). The eggshells are in excess, so all acetic acid in the solution reacts. The vinegar you are using is a 5% (weight percent) solution of acetic acid, CH3COOH. For each liter there will 5 grams of acetic acid. The molar weight of Acetic Acid is 60,0520 g/mol. So 5 grams = 5 / 60,052 mol = 0,08... mol. Out of the reaction equation it is visible that 1 part Ca+ will be formed, when two parts Acetic Acid react. So per liter added vinegar, 0,0416 mol Ca+ wil be formed. The molar mass of Ca+ is 40,078 g / mol. So per liter added vinegar, 40,078 g / mol * 0,0416 mol = 1,67 gram Ca+ is formed.
So when you add a liter to eggshells, wait for the reaction to occur, then drain the excess of eggshells and catch the liguid, there will be a concentration of 1,67 gram Ca+ per liter. Actually using 5% vinegar, always leads to a 1,67 gram Ca+ / liter solution.
Yes dusted off the dslr and put it to use at last. Thanks for the calculations.
Love the practical garden science😂
What about grinding the egg shells into powder and mixing it with water?
Thank you for the information I seriously did not know about that method. I thought you just cracked it up and put it in the ground
Surely if you’ve been adding shells to your soil for the last 5 years and you are continuing to do that, then the shells will slow release calcium into the soil continuously.
Love the idea of feeding them to the chickens and completing the cycle.
Really enjoy your channel.
This is true of course although arguably still not the most effective way to do it/distribute it.
I have washed and dried eggshells and the out then through a grinder into powder form. It's much simpler but whether it helped I am not sure
It’s still calcium carbonate and not water soluble so needs the same time to breakdown into a form that the plants can use. Maybe it helps a bit though.