Day Three

This has been a difficult challenge. It seems to me that for this particular challenge, the production team are under the impression that limestone is limestone is limestone, and that its conversion to lime is possible at the kind of low temperatures you can achieve with a coal fire. Not so. There are many different forms of ‘limestone’, many of which will contain impurities that will make the conversion more difficult, if not impossible under Rough Science conditions. (Producer's note: We just wanted to see what Mike was capable of!) For example, marbled limestone will need much higher temperatures than the chalky form. Most of the limestone round these parts is of the former variety. Despite this, I’ve had some degree of success, largely because calcium hydroxide is so insoluble in water that I didn’t need to make very much of it in order to produce a functional carbon dioxide filter.

At the end of Day 3, my carbon dioxide filter works, and works well, but this one’s been hard work.