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One advantage they don't discuss is perhaps lack of toxicity. I used to do Carpentry during summer break and sometimes we'd burn scraps for heat. I was advised

One advantage they don't discuss is perhaps lack of toxicity. I used to do Carpentry during summer break and sometimes we'd burn scraps for heat. I was advised not to throw treated lumber into the pile as it's toxic so this would be a good step in the right direction towards less toxins introduced into homes and groundwater.

djaychela 7y ago
Agreed, but looking at the three substances they mention in the article - Oxides of Zinc, Aluminium and Titanium, I guess there could be other considerations in terms of groundwater issues? Also, how practical, cost-wise would this be? It's not mentioned in the article, but surely titanium would be prohibitive in terms of cost? (Even for small amounts)
- IanCal 7y ago
  Let's see if I can multiply up the numbers correctly. Please let me know if I'm messing these up. Article is closed, but supplementary material is free. Each experiment is 3 blocks of wood, each 5 grams. So 15g of wood. They say they need 2x10^20 molecules of TiCl4 for one experiment (perhaps the final deposited amount in the extreme 'all cells covered' case). Or 3x10^-4 moles. That's 200x10^-4 or 2x10^-2 for 1kg wood. Making it up to 1 mole gives us 50kg of wood. 1 mole is 190g of TiCl4. Or about 250kg wood per kg TiCl4. Alibaba costs (I'm not in the field so that's based on it being there first link) puts that at maybe a dollar or two. Caveats: may require less because completely covering all cells is not realistic. May require more because you don't use things completely efficiently. Alibaba may not be representative (either direction) and the "99.9%" pure stuff there may not be good enough and going higher may get exponentially more expensive. But it doesn't seem like the raw cost of the materials necessarily would be a problem to me.
tssva 7y ago
Chromated copper arsenate, which is highly toxic, used to be used to make pressure treated wood. Throwing a piece on the fire would have released a good bit of arsenic. Since 2003 pressure treated wood is made with alkaline copper quanternary, copper azole or micronized copper azole. They are all very much all less toxic since they are believed not be be able to be absorbed by the body, but I still wouldn't throw any on a fire.

djaychela 7y ago

Agreed, but looking at the three substances they mention in the article - Oxides of Zinc, Aluminium and Titanium, I guess there could be other considerations in terms of groundwater issues? Also, how practical, cost-wise would this be? It's not mentioned in the article, but surely titanium would be prohibitive in terms of cost? (Even for small amounts)

IanCal 7y ago
Let's see if I can multiply up the numbers correctly. Please let me know if I'm messing these up. Article is closed, but supplementary material is free. Each experiment is 3 blocks of wood, each 5 grams. So 15g of wood. They say they need 2x10^20 molecules of TiCl4 for one experiment (perhaps the final deposited amount in the extreme 'all cells covered' case). Or 3x10^-4 moles. That's 200x10^-4 or 2x10^-2 for 1kg wood. Making it up to 1 mole gives us 50kg of wood. 1 mole is 190g of TiCl4. Or about 250kg wood per kg TiCl4. Alibaba costs (I'm not in the field so that's based on it being there first link) puts that at maybe a dollar or two. Caveats: may require less because completely covering all cells is not realistic. May require more because you don't use things completely efficiently. Alibaba may not be representative (either direction) and the "99.9%" pure stuff there may not be good enough and going higher may get exponentially more expensive. But it doesn't seem like the raw cost of the materials necessarily would be a problem to me.

tssva 7y ago

Chromated copper arsenate, which is highly toxic, used to be used to make pressure treated wood. Throwing a piece on the fire would have released a good bit of arsenic. Since 2003 pressure treated wood is made with alkaline copper quanternary, copper azole or micronized copper azole. They are all very much all less toxic since they are believed not be be able to be absorbed by the body, but I still wouldn't throw any on a fire.