Five different flora substrate clippings were collected from South Park, Oxford. We chose these five as they were the easiest to obtain geographically and are locally abundant within Oxford. The five substrates include the following: American sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua), European horse chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum), Ivy (Hedera helix), English Oak (Quercus robur) and Pine (Pinus).
In the lab, we firstly labeled the vials control 1, control 2, A1, A2, B1 etc to E2. We measured the weight of the empty bio chambers, we then filled five bio chambers with 100 grams of soil and weighed them again. We then weighed the empty vials, zeroed the scales and filled them with 1 gram (4dp) of soda lime. We kept one bio chamber (control 1) with just the vial of soda lime to act as a control, we also used a soil and lime control (control 2) to assess if the soil contributed to carbon absorption.
All bio chambers labelled (X)1, contained soil and flora matter, whereas, the chambers labelled (X)2 contained just flora matter. We then individually weighed 2 grams (2dp) and inserted the five different flora matter to the appropriate chambers (see table). We then closed the bio chambers and placed them in a warm environment for 35 days. The characteristics of each vial can be viewed within Figure 1 below.
On the 5th week we re entered the lab, we firstly carefully removed the bio chambers from the constant temperature room. We visually noted down the aesthetic changes to the bio chambers, before weighing each chamber individually. After weighing the biochambers we removed the vials containing the soda lime one by one, and weighed them to 4 dp. We then visually assessed the appearance of the soda lime and the flora matter left within the bio chambers.
Figure 1: Table presenting the characteristics of each vial, labelled A1-E2, Control 1 and Control 2.
Physical Atmosphere 