Chemical-free and vacuum-free plasma technology for agricultural seed treatments

“未来30年，全球粮食需求将增长43%（联合国粮农组织）；然而人均农业用地却在下降，从2004年到2014年下降了20%（世界银行）。粮食生产受到挤压促使人们强烈关注农业效率；该项目开发了一种低成本技术，可以作为解决方案的一部分。种子自然会受到一系列细菌和真菌的感染，其中一些对最终的收成是灾难性的。提高农业产量的一条行之有效的途径是在播种前对种子进行消毒，从而降低作物患病或灾难性歉收的风险。这通常是通过蒸汽、热水、化学品和杀虫剂的处理来实现的。这种方法可能会导致种子发芽率显著降低，而且随着有害副作用的发现，许多正在使用的化学物质正在受到监管。此外，这些过程要求后处理，如干燥，这是昂贵和耗时的。Zayndu的方法是使用非真空等离子体对种子进行消毒。该工艺成本低，有机，效益显著；消除有毒化学物质-和需要的后处理干燥。该项目将该系统扩展为具有工业能力水平的产品。它还建立了一个能够开发产品的商业组织，确保第一批客户安装，并创建投资平台。Zayndu的非真空等离子体技术运行成本低，只使用空气和电力来清洁种子，并已通过行业标准测试。由于不涉及化学物质，它提供了低成本、环保的种子消毒——通过提供高发芽率的无病作物，帮助满足世界日益增长的粮食需求。商业潜力巨大——预计到2022年，经过处理的种子市场价值将达到913.2亿美元，而种子灭菌设备的销售额预计将达到8.42亿美元（Markets & Markets, 2017）。创新和项目是及时的。Zayndu的技术可以使受感染的种子和低发芽率成为过去，同时也消除了它所取代的化学物质的环境负荷。”

"Global food demand is set to grow by 43% in the next 30 years (UN Food & Agricultural Organisation); and yet agricultural land per head of population is falling, with a 20% drop from 2004 to 2014 (World Bank). This squeeze on food production is driving intense focus on agricultural efficiency; this project develops a low-cost technology which can be part of the solution.Seeds are naturally infected with a range of bacteria and fungi, some of which are catastrophic to the resultant harvest. A well-established route to enhancing agricultural yield is sterilising seeds before sowing - reducing the risk of diseased crops or catastrophic crop failure. This is commonly implemented with treatments involving steam, hot water, chemicals and pesticides. Such approaches can cause significant reductions in the germination rates of seeds, and many of the chemicals in use are becoming regulated -- as harmful side effects become known. Additionally, these processes dictate post-processing -- such as drying, which is costly and time consuming.Zayndu's approach is to use non-vacuum plasma to sterilise seeds. This process is low cost and organic, offering significant benefits; eliminating toxic chemicals - and the need for post-process drying. This project scales the system into a product with industrial capacity levels. It also builds a commercial organisation capable of exploiting the products, secures first customer installations and creates the platform for investment.Zayndu's non-vacuum plasma technology has low running costs, using only air and electricity to clean seeds and has been tested to industry standards. With no chemicals involved, it offers low-cost, environmentally-friendly seed sterilisation - helping satisfy the world's growing food demand by offering non-diseased crops with high germination rates.The business potential is significant - the treated seed market is forecast to be worth $91.32B in 2022, while sales of seed sterilisation equipment are projected to reach $842M at that time (Markets & Markets, 2017).The innovation and project are timely. Zayndu's technology can make infected seeds and low germination rates a thing of the past, while also eliminating the environmental load of the chemicals it replaces."