Temperature responsive shading solution for greenhouse climate control

用于温室气候控制的温度响应遮阳解决方案

• 批准号: 10053585
• 金额: $ 43.02万
• 依托单位: ALBOTHERM LTD
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Collaborative R&D
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=10053585
• 关键词: Temperature; responsive; shading; solution; greenhouse

The world needs to produce 50% more food by 2050 to feed a population that will reach nearly 10 billion in this time. Meanwhile arable land has decreased by 30% in the last 40 years due to the effects of urbanisation and climate change. It is essential that we increase the productivity of the arable land we have available to ensure future food security for our population.At Albotherm, we are developing greenhouse coatings that reversibly transition from transparent to white to shade crops in hot weather, allowing internal temperature regulation without electrical input. Our technology can increase light levels compared to standard shading, giving an estimated yield increase of up to 25%. For the UK this would mean up to 578,200 tonnes of extra food produced each year.Moreover, the use of fans in cooling UK greenhouses accounts for 235 million kWh of energy each year, which equates to roughly 55,000 tonnes of CO2 emitted \[4,6\]. Our technology has the potential to decrease the use of fans by 81%, saving 44,500 tonnes of CO2 and helping the horticultural industry's shift towards net-zero emissions.This is a technical feasibility project which will take our existing technology and develop a specific, customisable product for application in commercial greenhouses.Our current innovation is a coating that changes from transparent to reflective-white when heated, resulting in temperature-dependent shading. Our core IP is an active ingredient, that is added to transparent water-based coatings, to achieve reversible opacity at an engineerable transition temperature.This project will allow us to develop this prototype into a market-ready product that is gradually shading, durable and customisable to the specific heat and light requirements for optimal growth of each crop in order to improve crop yields.With these improvements to our first-generation system, we will then be able to quantify our coatings performance and durability in commercial greenhouses with our partners Vitacress, a herb producer in the UK and Flavour Fresh a berry and tomato grower in the UK. During this project, we will also collaborate with our partners Pilkington to test the durability and scale-up application capabilities for product trials.

到 2050 年，世界需要增加 50% 的粮食产量，才能养活届时将达到近 100 亿的人口。与此同时，由于城市化和气候变化的影响，过去 40 年来耕地面积减少了 30%。我们必须提高现有耕地的生产力，以确保我们人口未来的粮食安全。在 Albotherm，我们正在开发温室涂层，这种涂层可以在炎热天气下从透明作物可逆地转变为白色作物，再过渡到遮荫作物，无需电力输入即可实现内部温度调节。与标准遮阳相比，我们的技术可以增加光照水平，预计产量可提高高达 25%。对于英国来说，这意味着每年额外生产多达 578,200 吨粮食。此外，英国温室冷却风扇每年消耗 2.35 亿千瓦时的能源，相当于大约排放 55,000 吨二氧化碳\[4,6\]。我们的技术有可能减少 81% 的风扇使用量，节省 44,500 吨二氧化碳，并帮助园艺业向净零排放转变。这是一个技术可行性项目，将采用我们现有的技术，开发一种用于商业温室的特定的、可定制的产品。我们目前的创新是一种涂层，在加热时会从透明变为反光白色，从而产生与温度相关的阴影。我们的核心IP是一种活性成分，添加到透明水性涂料中，以在可设计的转变温度下实现可逆的不透明性。该项目将使我们能够将该原型开发成一款可立即投入市场的产品，该产品逐渐遮光、耐用，并可根据每种作物最佳生长的具体热和光要求进行定制，以提高作物产量。通过对我们第一代系统的这些改进，我们将能够量化我们的涂料性能和耐久性 与我们的合作伙伴 Vitacress（一家英国药草生产商）和 Flavor Fresh（一家英国浆果和番茄种植商）合作的商业温室。在这个项目中，我们还将与合作伙伴Pilkington合作，测试产品试验的耐久性和放大应用能力。