Use of Marble Dust as a Carbondioxide Source and Growing Media in Greenhouse Conditions

Abstract

Turkey is ranked first globally in marble export and high volume of marble waste is produced. Reuse of industrial wastes have a positive effect on decreasing the human pressure on limited natural resources. However, the environmental friendly use of wastes is the primarily required approach. This study foresees the use of marble dust in agriculture, particularly the effect of carbon dioxide released following the use of it in soilless agriculture. The experiment was conducted on lettuce with 5 different mixtures of peat-perlite + marble dust along with a control and 5% acetic acid (acidic) treatment. Five different mixtures were consisted of 87.5% peat-perlite + 12.5% marble dust, 75% peat-perlite + 25% marble dust, 50% peat-perlite + 50% marble dust, and 25% peat-perlite + 75% marble dust. The highest dry matter production of 15.65g/pot was achieved at the 25% marble dust with 5% acetic acid treatment by 2708.3 ppm CO2 emissions. The mentioned mixture's CO2 productions was 481.59% higher than the control. The increase of CO2 emission in mixtures, where marble dust was greater than 25%, lead decreases in dry matter production. As conclusion, with the decision of the suitable amounts of use, which was 25% in this study, it can be concluded that marble dust can be used as CO2 and Ca source in greenhouses.