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Direct Air Capture for CO2 in Hydroponics · Hydroponics Daily

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  Hello there and welcome back to
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  Hydroponics Daily, your go-to podcast for everything soilless cultivation.
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  I'm your host, Dr. Russell Sharp, the founder of Utrema Limited.
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  Now, when it comes to hydroponics, there are lots of positive environmental
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  claims that can be made, like if you're using a recirculatory system,
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  the reduction in water use is extremely dramatic compared to conventionally grown crops.
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  And you can make all sorts of
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  claims about carbon footprints of the crops compared to bringing them in from
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  other regions depending on where you are growing crops and where you're consuming
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  them but one of the big disadvantages of hydroponic and greenhouse cultivation
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  and indoor cultivation has always been the need to enrich the growing.
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  Environment with co2 for optimal conditions because
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  normally you in a
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  large scale greenhouse you'll have a burner a gas burner
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  that will triple the amount of co2 in there after that the contaminants in the
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  in the flue gas will lead to detrimental effects and it will no longer be economical
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  to increase the co2 levels beyond 1000 parts per million same in indoor growing however in,
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  indoor growing you might use co2 canisters to
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  remove that need for burning but people still use burners indoors
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  but you have to be really careful so both of them rely
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  on the burning of fossil fuels to to triple
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  that co2 level and that's been one of the big issues and it's
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  a real big problem where you have these greenhouses that are
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  in the middle of summer putting burning co2 and then having the vents open which
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  is crazy so there is a new type of technology and i am not an expert in it but
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  it does seem sound promising to that it could potentially lead to co2 enrichment
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  without the need to burn CO2.
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  And the CO2, the carbon footprint of it is massively low if you're using renewable energies.
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  Things like solar or wind or...
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  Tidal, or even nuclear to create the energy to capture the CO2.
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  And it's called DAC or direct air capture.
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  And I'm not sure how it works, but basically you can capture CO2 from the ambient
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  air, concentrate it, and then put that into your growing environment.
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  And there is a Japanese company that is leading the way and it's coming to European
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  greenhouses. So it's going to be at.
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  Seibu Gaiken, B-S-T-A-B. That's a really interesting, easy to remember name.
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  Part of the Japanese publicly listed Seibu Gaiken group.
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  They're experts in air treatment and so potentially these units will be coming to large greenhouses.
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  Obviously not small scale growers to
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  begin with because these are very large units but potentially
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  they could be a good thing because as well
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  as increasing co2 it could potentially remove volatile
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  organic compounds modify the humidity
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  even look at things like temperature as well so it's
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  been tested in japan and the trials have been
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  successful and they've done trials in 30 crops in the fukuoka prefecture i have
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  no idea where that is and i've been to japan so sorry i can't help you there
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  and they showed an average increase of 20% in yield compared to when using their
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  system compared to without CO2.
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  Other methods of CO2 enrichment that don't rely on fossil fuels are things like
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  CO2 from breweries, natural sources of CO2, microbial digestion,
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  however they can contain.
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  Deleterious gases like ethylene so you have to be careful you
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  have to be able to scrub that so there's a few people working at that sort
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  of side of it but a really interesting new
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  potential of using this DAC direct air capture technology
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  if you are running on fossil fuels then
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  the footprint can rise to you know half a
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  ton of CO2 emitted for every CO2 ton of CO2
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  captured which sort of erodes the advantage so clean
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  energy is key for this technology if you really want to
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  talk about its benefits beyond just
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  clean co2 now these units won't be
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  produced anywhere near the same amount of heat as a gas burner
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  that could be an advantage so you could keep you don't
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  have to waste the heat in the summer and
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  so it could be really good useful or it could be a disadvantage because you
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  are not getting that heat when you need it in the crop
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  so you might have to look at other sources of heat like
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  ground source heat pumps that can be run on renewable energy
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  but you know there's there's lots of options
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  you have electrical heaters if you've got if you've got renewable energy and
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  ample sources of it in your area or you
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  could have both you could have a gas burner for the
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  winter and the colder at times and then you could have direct air capture
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  DAC systems in the summer now i'm
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  not sure if this technology has is really proven if it's.
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  Ready to go or if it's still experimental and i'm
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  sure there are engineers who know more about it than me so more than happy to
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  be a late adopter of this technology especially as i don't run large-scale commercial
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  grasshouses be interesting to know if vertical farms take up this technology
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  first or whether it's large-scale greenhouses and you know cucumber and tomato
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  growers or is it indoor growers,
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  you know small scale is illegal cannabis growers could potentially
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  use this with a clean source of co2 let me
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  know your thoughts would really be interested to know if you've got any
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  experience of working with this is this old hat have
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  i not just just never come across it before and it's you know it's it's widespread
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  the problem is the units look like a lot of units you get in greenhouse trade
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  shows so i don't know if it's something completely new or if it's something
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  bog standard i think the unique technology is inside the big plastic big metal box with.
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  Flu tubes coming in and out so let me know
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  if you thought this was interesting if you did think this podcast was
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  interesting then please do leave an apple podcast review if you're not listening
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  to apple don't leave a review just follow the podcast and then go over to utreema.co.uk
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  where you'll find a whole range of interesting technologies that you've never
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  come across before if you've not come to the utreema website that's because
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  we have completely unique technology when it comes to fertilizers,
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  biostimulants, and biopesticides.
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  Many, many of our products can be used in hydroponics because they are premium
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  products, often too high aspects for what our customers need.
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  But that's my problem, not yours.
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  Until next time, thank you very much for listening. It's been Hydroponics Daily. Goodbye.