Plasma activated water: nature's answer to chemical pesticides | Paul Leenders | TEDxArnhem

please welcome Paul nameless okay has anyone eating an apple in the last few days yeah well I have two and I must say I like apples a lot and we all know that to stay healthy we need to eat more fruits and more vegetables but you probably also know that chemical pesticides are used to grow our crops acquire foods vegetables and these chemical pesticides well they are specifically designed to kill living things and by using these pesticides to grow our crops we are actually introducing them into our food chain we are eating these chemicals of course they say these chemicals have been tested on a case-by-case basis but the combined effects of these pesticides are completely unknown and unfortunately this nice apple tops the list of most contaminated produce in 2014 and we don't only pollute ourselves by using these pesticides to grow our crops now we also pollute our environment because these pesticides they can stay in our soil and around water for many many years they say there is no alternative to grow our crops and we need those pesticides well i am paul amos chemist entrepreneur and together with a group of scientists we have found out that this is just not the case the story starts in 2009 we were developing a device in which plasma technology was used to Desson fact hands and will first explain what a plasma is the plasma is the fourth state of matter you have solids you have liquids we have gases and then you have the plasma phase to give an example of plasma as well our Sun is a plasma and fire is a plasma it's an ionized gas and the Northern Light is also the plasma and you probably all know the plasma television in which plasma technology is used to create an image on a screen as a matter of fact 99% of all matter in the universe is in the plasma phase so there is a lot of plasma around and within our project we brought air into the plasma phase and I will try to explain how we do there okay well if you have eyes which is a solid and you add energy to that ice the ice will melt and it becomes water and if you then add energy to that water the water will boil evaporate and it becomes a gas so and if you then add more energy to that gas then you create a plasma and that is exactly what we did with just normal air we edit electrical energy and created an air plasma well but in our project we proved that hands can be disinfected with an air plasma it's very good possible only the difficulty is how do you apply this plasma activated air on hands because when you blow it on hands but then it's already gone so you need a continuous flow of plasma activated air and you also need to suck those gases away and that was quite difficult within our project it was quite frustrating we couldn't get that right and at that time I was also involved in some other plasma medicine project in which the same plasma activated air is used to treat wounds to treat infected wounds which works very well by way and after a meeting with a group of scientists I spoke to Peter Bergmann at that time a professor at the Technical University in hangover and I told him about our problem with applying this plasma activated air and Peter Peter he told me about a new phenomenon he told me about plasma activated air he said when you treat normal water with an air plasma and you can compare that by with lightning striking water do you see how we do that in a laboratory he said when you treat water with an air plasma then the water obtains unique disinfecting properties the first 50 minutes you have a very strong disinfecting liquid and after 15 minutes a mild but long-lasting disinfecting property remains a Peter said well maybe Diskin solve your problem because spraying a liquid on hands for instance is much easier it because it stays on the surface but I drove home from that meeting and I kept thinking about a phenomenon plasma activated water and one of the first things that came into my mind was well why don't you try to use this water to spray it on crops instead of those chemical pesticides well with it idea I called the Agricultural University in versioning in the next day and I told them about this idea well within two weeks we started our first experiments with a group of eight master students to perform tests with plasma activated water and the students did perform several tests but one specific test it was a clear indication of the possibilities of plasma activated water the students they bought a bunch of roses just at the supermarket on the corner they splitted bunch of roses into a half place one half it's normal water and the other half into plasma activated water and what we saw was quite amazing the roses kept in plasma activated waters stayed much longer fresh and much longer healthy compared to the Roses kept in normal water well how is that possible plasma activated air prevents microorganisms to grow in that water so the water couldn't get polluted with microorganisms which is much better for roses so they stayed longer fresh and that simple test was for us a clear indication that plasma activated water it can disinfect plant material so at that time we realized well this could be something big that we have here so we quickly expanded our research with the Technical University in ain't over the Agricultural University in Martin again and a lot bought university in America and indeed we proved that plasma activated water can be used as an alternative for chemical pesticides but that was not the only test we perform now we also affect this water to the crops to see what the effect was and again what we saw was amazing he was he tomato plants the day was seated exactly the same time giving the same amount of water well the right bank of normal tap water the other one the same tap water but only treated with plasma so the crops they really like plasma activated water they grow much faster are much healthier and well that was quite amazing and we also found out that by using plasma activated water instead of those chemical pesticides well you don't leave the residues that pesticides do and of course well you may ask is it safe to use plasma activated water well the process of making plasma activated water is copied out of nature because when it rains and lightning strikes it rains plasma activated water and when lightning strikes on water on a lake or the sea for instance well at the point of impact you have a lot of plasma activated water so let's be fair nature knows how to handle this because there has been lightning on earth for hundreds of millions of years and last but not least using plasma activated water instead of those pesticide well that way we don't have to eat those pesticides anymore so it's also better for us and plasma activated water can easily be produced on the spot just there where it's needed you only need water air and electricity no chemicals are headed well what if this Apple was grown with plasma activated bottom well the apple tree would like it because it's a natural fertilizer and it's also much better for our environment because it doesn't leave residues like pesticides do and it's also better for us for you and me because this way we don't have to eat those pesticides anymore well we are convinced that with plasma activated water we have found an alternative for most chemical pesticides and fungicides which are used by farmers all over the world plasma activated water nature's answer to chemical pesticides

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 184,472

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Netherlands, Health, Food, Nature, Science, Water

Id: vDcQhkt3-L0

Length: 9min 36sec (576 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 07 2015