Dec 21 2012
Nano Labs Corp. today announced it has developed an innovative "intelligent illumination system" for greenhouses, that works with commercial light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to reduce energy consumption and improve processes contributing to the growth of plant life in agricultural greenhouses.
The new system reduces energy consumption while at the same time providing improved control over artificial light used to stimulate photochemical activities in plants for growth and the production of chlorophyll. By employing a "The Pulse Modulated Chlorophyll Fluorescence Monitoring Stage", the innovative technology provides for the automatic control of light in relation to a whole range of greenhouse and plant conditions, including seasonal adjustments tailored to the type of vegetables and plants being illuminated.
"Through nanotechnology, we believe we're taking LEDs to another level for commercial greenhouses and the agriculture industry," said Nano Labs' President Bernardo Chavarria. " Our technology offers better control in relation to light frequency (or wavelength), light quality, and pulse width of the light beams emitted by the LEDs, which hold important advantages over other existing artificial illumination sources such as fluorescent lamps, metal halide lamps, and high pressured sodium lamps. Our system offers higher efficiency in terms of energy consumption, quantum efficiency of the light produced, provides longer lifespan, controllable emission spectrum, safer handling, as well as improved disposal procedures."
In developing the technology, Nano Lab's goal was to help world agriculture to improve the crop yields and the quality of produce, while maintaining low energy consumption and minimizing the environmental impacts, Mr. Chavaria explained.
"We all know that light, to a large extent, is responsible for life on Earth. However, for a long time Science has worked only to a limited degree to study how we humans can use artificial light to promote plant growth. In recent years, though, we've seen very impressive developments in light-emitting diodes (LEDs), not only in terms of their improved illumination capabilities, but also in relation to affordability. We believe LEDs hold much promise for creating new technologies for the 21st century agriculture," said Dr. Victor Castano, CEO of Innovation at Nano Labs.
The novel system for greenhouses has allowed Nano Labs to determine the effect of pulsed light, as opposed to simple continuous light, in a frequency range from 0.1Hz to 100 kHz, with red and blue LEDs on the chlorophyll fluorescence emission of tomato plants, demonstrating that it is possible through the Company's innovations to control and enhance plant growth at will.
This technology represents an answer to the greenhouse growers problem worldwide, of making as efficient as possible the crop yield in their agricultural greenhouses, while maintaining a low energy consumption, thus having a favourable impact on the environment. Also, the technology aims to link two important industrial activities which would seem to have little relation: photonics and agriculture, opening new market opportunities for both. With Nano Labs` approach, it would be possible to increase the vegetable production in greenhouses, independently of the season, for the pulsed LEDs light replicates the crop cycles efficiently at a low energy cost.