I’m doing a research project in biology and need to study the effects of pollution on seed germination. I have been assigned sodium hydroxide and its effect on the germination on cucumber seeds. I haven’t been able to find anything specific on NaOH’s effect on germination, just general pollution info. Can anyone help me out or point me in the right direction? Thanks!
Do a google search for effect of pH on seed germination. Also, do a search on effect of alkalinity on seed germination.
I saw many websites come up - here is one for example - http://jrm.library.arizona.edu/data/1975/286/17sing.pdf
NaOH is an alkali (base) which when dissolved in water will give you a pH > 7.
These should get you started:
“pH and germination”
“basic soil” micronutrients
“sodium hydroxide” “soil pH”
Toxic spill leaves 500,000 in Brazil without water (April 2, 2003)
A good search will likely yield details on how the local plant life is affected.
How much time do you have for your project? I would think that the logical thing to do is to get about a dozen flowerpots, plant some seeds in them, and add varying amounts of Draino to the pots. See which ones grow and how much, and which ones die.
Pulp bleaching fluids have NaOH as one of the components, but really I don’t think NaOH as such is such a big pollutant.
Chronos’s idea looks good to me except that NaOH converts to Na2CO3 in air fairly easily, so I donno how you will control that.
Sure, the NaOH content depends on the process they’re using to break down the lignin. There are all sorts of different methods.
Absorption of carbonate will happen whenever you’ve got NaOH, so that’s more a part of the chemocals’s impact on the environment, than an experimental variable that needs rigorous control, though I suppose the OP could recrystallize the drano from ethanol, and try to sprout plants in a CO[sub]2[/sub] free atmosphere… 