{"id":2862,"date":"2018-10-19T13:34:00","date_gmt":"2018-10-19T17:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/?p=2862"},"modified":"2025-01-28T09:18:38","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T14:18:38","slug":"getting-to-the-root-of-the-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/2018\/10\/getting-to-the-root-of-the-matter\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting to the Root of the Matter"},"content":{"rendered":"
Daniel Piatek ’17 received a science grant to explore how cold plasmas may help accelerate plant growth and ultimately improve food supply.<\/div><\/div>\n

Daniel Piatek \u201917 enrolled at Seton Hall thinking he might want to become a doctor. But that career path took a turn when Piatek began working in the Laboratory of Electrophysics & Atmospheric Plasmas, led by physics professor Jose Lopez, who has conducted extensive research in plasma physics.<\/p>\n

Lopez and other Seton Hall professors had begun a seminal experiment designed to gauge whether cold plasmas \u2014 the fourth state of matter \u2014 could stimulate the growth of plants. Piatek was hooked.<\/p>\n

Piatek envisioned a similar research project of his own, so he applied to a Seton Hall committee and received a summer undergraduate fellowship with funds provided by the New Jersey Space Grant Consortium, which was established by a grant from NASA. This type of work could have global implications. The potential for cold plasmas to accelerate plant growth could mean more-productive harvests around the world, providing food for the planet\u2019s ever-expanding population.<\/p>\n

Piatek focused his experiment on kidney beans. \u201cThey\u2019re very nutritious,\u201d he says. \u201cSince plants are all kind of different in their own way, I wanted to start off with something useful in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Piatek came to Seton Hall under a dual-degree program in which students spend three years at Seton Hall and two years at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Upon completion, they earn two bachelor\u2019s degrees \u2014 one in physics from Seton Hall and one in biomedical engineering from NJIT.<\/p>\n

But after spending one year at NJIT, Piatek knew he wanted to pursue a career in physics. When Seton Hall announced it was creating a two-year master\u2019s program in physics, starting this fall, Piatek applied, and in May he became the program\u2019s first official enrollee.<\/p>\n

Piatek had begun his interdisciplinary kidney bean research project by coordinating the construction of an elaborate scaffolding system inside a greenhouse on the roof of McNulty Hall. The scaffolding held the hydroponically grown plants and was encased in thick plastic blackout curtains, because Piatek wanted to control the amount of light the plants received and restrict them to eight hours of artificial light each day.<\/p>\n

Three hydroponic systems were created. One was not treated by the cold plasmas, another applied cold plasmas only to the leaves of each plant, and the third applied the cold plasmas to the roots. The study measured the effects of atmospheric pressure cold plasma jets over different treatment durations and different frequencies of application. The cold plasmas, which behave like a gas but conduct electricity like a wire, were applied with the use of a hand-held device that looks something like a can of spray paint and emits a small flame.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to make sure the plants get the same light, water and nutrients,\u201d Piatek says. \u201cYou want to have as many constants as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to Lopez, one of the world\u2019s leading experts in the subfield of microplasmas, Piatek was assisted in his research by chemistry doctoral candidate Daniel Guerrero. Complementary work on basil plants was conducted by chemistry master\u2019s degree student Sauvelson Auguste, along with chemistry professors Cosimo Antonacci and Father Gerald Buonopane.<\/p>\n

Lopez credits Piatek with spearheading the kidney bean project. \u201cHe built the hydroponic system that was going to grow the kidney plants. He did a lot of the preliminary research before he graduated.\u201d<\/p>\n

This summer, as Piatek prepared to enter the master\u2019s program in physics, he had the singular experience of working in the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. The Department of Energy national lab is one of the world\u2019s foremost plasma research institutes, and Piatek worked on plasma propulsion technology known as a Hall Thruster, which could be used for maneuvering satellites or propulsion systems for future spacecraft.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Piatek\u2019s kidney bean research continues under the supervision of biology professor Mary Berger and Isaac Guevara, a physics undergraduate researcher. The preliminary results look promising, with the treated plants showing more robust stems, for example. \u201cI would say we\u2019re making good progress,\u201d Piatek says, \u201cbut I\u2019d also say we\u2019re not done yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christopher Hann is a freelance writer and editor in New Jersey.<\/em><\/p>\n

This story was revised to clarify information about the grant that Daniel Piatek \u201917 received. An earlier version indicated that Piatek applied for and received an undergraduate fellowship from NASA. Piatek applied to a Seton Hall committee that awarded the fellowship, with funds provided by the New Jersey Space Grant Consortium, an organization founded by a grant from NASA.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Daniel Piatek \u201917 received a science grant to explore how cold plasmas may help accelerate plant growth and ultimately improve food supply.<\/p>\n

Continue ReadingGetting to the Root of the Matter<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":4073,"featured_media":2881,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,12,17,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-features","category-scholarship","category-students","entry"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4073"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2862"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3023,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2862\/revisions\/3023"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}