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)；但人均农业用地却在减少，从2004年到2014年减少了20%(世界银行)。这种对粮食生产的挤压正在推动对农业效率的强烈关注；该项目开发了一种低成本的技术，可以作为解决方案的一部分。种子自然会感染一系列细菌和真菌，其中一些对结果的收成是灾难性的。一种公认的提高农业产量的方法是在播种前对种子进行消毒--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的显著下降，而且随着有害副作用的出现，正在使用的许多化学品正在受到管制。此外，这些过程需要后处理--例如干燥，这是昂贵和耗时的。Zayndu的方法是使用非真空等离子体来杀菌种子。这一过程成本低，是有机的，提供了显著的好处；消除了有毒化学物质--而且不需要后处理干燥。该项目将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，确保了第一批客户的安装，并创造了投资平台。Zayndu的非真空等离子技术运行成本低，只使用空气和电力来清洁种子，并已根据行业标准进行了测试。它不涉及化学品，提供低成本、环保的种子杀菌--通过提供高发芽率的非病害作物，帮助满足世界日益增长的食品需求。商业潜力巨大--2022年，经过处理的种子市场预计价值913.2亿美元，而届时种子杀菌设备的销售额预计将达到8.42亿美元(Markets&Markets，2017)。创新和项目来得正是时候。Zayndu的技术可以让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品的环境负荷。

"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."