Nanochemistry Innovator Debuts GrowBlade™ Flat-Panel Growlights at NYC AgTech Week
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The company behind one of the newest LED’s on the market - Light Polymers - is Agritecture’s featured sponsor for the third annual NYC AgTech Week. To view their Crystallin lights up close, come by our office at 40 Bushwick Ave, Brooklyn anytime during the week (Sep 16 - Sep 21), and be sure to purchase tickets to any events you’d like to attend.
What follows is a press release from Light Polymers:
Light Polymers, a nanochemistry startup with R&D operations in Silicon Valley, Taiwan and Korea, is debuting their GrowBlade™ flat-panel horticulture lighting at the third annual NYC AgTech Week.
Hosted by the NYC Agriculture Technology Collective, NYC AgTech Week 2017 includes tours, workshops and presentations that engage attendees on the bleeding edge of urban agriculture knowledge and development. AgTech Week 2017 kicks off on September 16thfollowed by 6 days of events across the city. Light Polymers is also September’s featured sponsor for Agritecture, a leading urban agriculture blog and a founding member of the collective.
Light Polymers’ GrowBlade™ flat-panel grow lights are part of a new generation of LED lights that improve the productivity of multi-layer indoor cultivation for leafy greens and herbs, seedlings, clones, grafts and tissue culture. GrowBlade™ flat panels are made possible by our proprietary Crystallin®lyotropic coating and suspension chemistry which is water-based, lowering manufacturing costs.
“Our self-aligning coatings can be applied with high yield and low cost. The coating packs phosphor particles in a dense layer maximizing light conversion, allowing us to lower both production and operating costs. The result is GrowBlade™ light panels that are cheaper, thinner and more efficient than conventional grow lights. These advancements mean lower initial costs, lower operating costs and improved productivity for indoor farms,” said Sandor Schoichet (image above), VP of Grow Products at Light Polymers.
About Light Polymers
Light Polymers is a nanochemistry company with deep domain knowledge of lyotropic liquid crystals, which have use in many applications including LCD and OLED flat panel displays, LED lighting, building materials and biomedical applications. Founded in 2013 in San Francisco, Light Polymers’ water-based coating and suspension chemistry is game-changing for a number of industries. For more information, visit http://www.lightpolymers.com/
About NYC AgTech Week 2017:
The Third Annual NYC AgTech Week will showcase the efforts of entrepreneurs, farmers and technologists who are advancing urban agriculture in New York City and beyond. The week commences with a brunch kick-off at Agritecture’s office at 40 Bushwick Ave and continues from September 16-21 at locations around the city. AgTech Week will feature farm tours, workshops, demos, networking and the ever popular Locavore Feast. Shown here is a recap video from the 2016 edition of NYC AgTech Week.
(Image: AgTech Week 2016 participants on an NYC farm tour)
Contacts
Write2Market for Light Polymers
Casey Stokes, 404-428-2135
[email protected]
Carnivorous Plants Thrive Under GrowBlade™ Lighting
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Operated by Peter D’Amato and Damon Collingsworth, California Carnivores is a nursery for carnivorous plants based in Sebastopol, California, north of San Francisco. California Carnivores is the largest carnivorous plant nursery in the world that is open to the public. Founded in 1989, California Carnivores has been promoting conservation through cultivation for almost 30 years. They grow and sell the widest variety of carnivorous plants in the United States. Venus flytraps, American pitcher plants, sundews, butterworts, bladderworts, tropical pitcher plants and others – all commercially cultivated for either the curious beginner or the discriminating collector who wants the highest quality plants. California Carnivores sells plants both on-site at their nursery and online.
Growing carnivorous plants can require specific lighting and environmental requirements. Some prefer cooler environments than others, some prefer more light. Regardless of individual plant species’ requirements, maintaining a stable growing environment and providing appropriate lighting for healthy growth are the keys to success. Traditional grow-lights put out a great deal of heat, so lighting had to be kept at a distance from the plants themselves. In addition, plants requiring cool environments were difficult to cultivate because climate-control systems had to fight the heat output of the lights. At the minimum, this creates a management and operational cost challenge for even accomplished cultivators.
In their ongoing quest to cultivate rare carnivorous plants, California Carnivores became part of Light Polymers Alpha Test program for the new GrowBlade horticultural LED lighting system in a project to hybridize Sun Pitchers (Heliamphora). Heliamphora tend to crave strong light but are very sensitive to excessive heat. This unique set of needs has made it difficult to cultivate them effectively outside of their natural habitat.
Light Polymers’ GrowBlades provide a simple, low-cost solution for high-quality LED horticultural lighting by leveraging Crystallin® film to deliver lights with high output and thermal efficiency, emitting more usable light per watt while creating less waste heat. This allows the GrowBlade to operate at a cooler temperature than competing lights, while offering a more even and well-diffused light source for sensitive plants. A lower temperature of operation and better efficiency also mean lower operating costs and reduced strain on environmental control systems. The thin ½” form factor of the GrowBlade Edge model helps work in space-constrained growing environments. These advantages are coupled with competitive pricing that makes the GrowBlade a natural choice for horticultural operations of any size.
Light Polymers is a nanochemistry company with deep domain knowledge of lyotropic materials, which have many applications including LCD and OLED flat panel displays, LED lighting, advanced building materials and biomedical assays.GrowBlade lighting will be available to select customers for Beta testing in Q4 2017 and available generally in Q1 2018.
SEPTEMBER SPOTLIGHT: LIGHT POLYMERS’ GROWBLADE™ FLAT PANEL LIGHTS FOR VERTICAL FARMING
Light Polymers is the newest horticultural LED grow light maker on the market, but at Agritecture we’ve been tracking their innovation since we first met nearly one year ago at a LARTA Institute event in Los Angeles.
After closing a multi-million dollar strategic funding deal, Light Polymers is now announcing its first GrowBlade™ flat-panel LED grow lights, designed for vertical farming and other controlled environment applications. We’re excited to introduce them as Agritecture’s featured Sponsor for September and to highlight their new GrowBlade lights in the +Farm demo at our offices during NYC AgTech Week. We interviewed Sandor Schoichet, VP of Grow Products at Light Polymers, to learn more.
Agritecture: Let’s jump right in. What is your team’s background and how did you come together to develop the GrowBlade system?
Sandor: The Grow Products story started almost two years ago when I met Marc McConnaughey, CEO of Light Polymers. We were both part of the Bay Area Alliance of CEOs, a sort of mutual support organization for business leaders. Marc gave a talk where he demonstrated how their Crystallin® photonic film could down-convert blue LED light into beautiful high-CRI (Color Rendering Index) white light. I had recently read The Vertical Farm by Prof. Dickson Despommier and was thinking about opportunities to build a business related to indoor farming. So I asked Marc if his team could formulate a PAR (Photosynthetically Active Radiation) spectrum film. The challenge caught the interest of Dr. Evgeny Morozov, Lead Materials Scientist at Light Polymers, and shortly thereafter we had a lab bench prototype made from a hand-coated film sample and an empty Altoids mints tin. It was destiny calling and we haven’t looked back since!
First GrowBlade prototype made from an Altoids Mints tin
A: Tell us a bit about Light Polymers’ history.
S: Light Polymers is a nanochemistry company with deep domain knowledge of lyotropic materials, which have a wide range of uses in addition to LED lighting, including LCD and OLED flat panel displays, biomedical assays, and advanced building materials. Light Polymers was started in 2013 in San Francisco and our OLED chemistry is now in trial stages with potential commercialization partners in the display industry. Our Crystallin family of LED downlights was launched in select Asian markets in August. The GrowBlade family of flat-panel grow lights that we’re announcing later this month at NYC AgTech Week will be our first step into the commercial horticulture lighting business.
Sandor Schoichet inspecting the Isabel alpha-test site
A: What do you think an entrepreneur or buyer should look for in horticultural LED lights?
S: Both products and vendor services that help growers achieve their operational and financial goals. At Light Polymers, we’re not focused only on high-quality lighting; we’re developing a family of over-canopy lighting and sensing products designed to integrate with farm management software. Delivering robust and profitable growing systems for indoor vertical farming is a challenge that the industry is still learning to meet. We intend to be part of the solution that lets vertical farming and controlled environment agriculture (CEA) scale into the global food supply sector.
A: How will Light Polymers continue to stay on the cutting edge?
S: There are three different ways we want to push the envelope. First is building a solutions-oriented business culture, delivering high-performance lighting systems. As the industry continues to grow there will be many opportunities for a responsive team to partner with innovative customers. In support of the solutions strategy, our second focus is building real depth in the science of photobiology, in installation design and engineering, and in farm management systems integration. Our third front reflects our team’s experience with virtual production models that leverage the high-volume flat panel lighting and display supply chain. This experience will allow us to be very aggressive on pricing and delivery for our customers.
GrowBlade Edge 1400 panels at Isabel (alpha-test samples)
A: What excites you about vertical farming?
S: I’ve always been interested in the way that technology and society co-evolve. Over the past several years, studying the sustainability of our society and its infrastructure has become a passion. These three themes, technological innovation, social change, and the need for sustainability, are now coming together in a generational wave of change that will impact agriculture and the entire food supply sector. Controlled environment agriculture is a vital part of responding to macro trends like population and economic growth, urbanization, water scarcity, agricultural runoff, climate change, and food security.
As a designer, an engineer, and a developer, helping address a part of this challenge is very exciting. Indoor CEA is just starting to come together as a serious industry sector, and there is huge scope for creative product and service developments. We’ve placed early alpha-test lights with several organizations, including the MIT OpenAg Initiative. The work they’re doing with the open source Food Computer reminds me so much of the early days of distributed computing workstations and homebrew computer clubs, and we know how that scaled beyond all expectation. I’ve worked in a number of different areas over my career, including digital engineering, networking, biotech and business development. Developing our lighting business for vertical farming lets me combine elements of them all.
GrowBlade Edge 1400 panels at Isabel (alpha-test samples)
A: What makes Light Polymers’ GrowBlade product line stand out?
S: Our GrowBlade flat panel grow lights deliver even, wide-area, fully diffused illumination, without hot or cold spots, and will be available in a range of tailored PAR spectra. The whole GrowBlade product family is designed to allow farmers to grow closer, increasing productivity within a given footprint, while improving crop consistency and quality.
What makes our flat panel lights possible is a new generation of remote photonic down-conversion films, based on our proprietary Crystallin® lyotropic coating and suspension chemistry. Remote down-conversion is not a new concept to the LED industry, but implementation and cost issues have kept it from being widely adopted despite its many advantages. Current down-conversion films are made from a silicon resin, using toxic chemistry in a time-consuming, low yield process. They’ve been limited to niche applications where high-quality lighting is required, like museums or photography studios. By contrast, our Crystallin chemistry uses water as a solvent and can be coated on roll-to-roll machines with high yield and low cost. The self-aligning properties of the lyotropic material pack the phosphor particles in a dense layer, maximizing blue light conversion and allowing us to lower both production and operating costs.
Since the output spectrum is generated by the Crystallin film, we can formulate a wide variety of application-specific spectra tailored for leafy greens and herbs, clones, seedlings and grafts, tissue culture, and greenhouse daylight supplementation. In moving crop systems we can tailor spectra for different stages of the lifecycle. We’re also glad to formulate custom spectra on request.
Other stand-out elements of our solution that will be coming along soon include GrowBlade Hub and Sensor modules. GrowBlade Hubs will simplify power wiring for large installations and transform the individual fixtures into a connected IoT (Internet of Things) platform for active light control, environmental sensing, and crop monitoring. Can’t wait until I’m free to talk about that in more depth!
Stop by Agritecture during NYC AgTech Week to meet Sandor and see the lights in person.
A: Why did you choose NYC AgTech Week as the first place to show your products to the world?
S: The awesome combination of the Agritecture network, being part of Blue Planet’s +Farm demonstration and a week-long opportunity to meet and talk with a wide range of growers and innovators across the industry made it the obvious choice.
A: Last question, what makes you happy?
S: Designing and building cool things that work. Contributing to the evolution of a socially meaningful new industry sector. Meeting new friends who are making a positive difference in the world. Oh, and sailing!
GrowBlade Edge 600 at Agritecture’s Brooklyn Office (alpha-test sample)
Biosynthesis of metallic nanoparticles using plant extracts and evaluation of their antibacterial properties
The increasing attention being paid to metallic nano particles (MNPs) is due to their intensive applications in different areas of science such as medicine, chemistry, agriculture, and biotechnology. The main methods for nanoparticle production are .... more :http://www.nanochemres.org/article_63665.html
Meet Jan Patrick “Japhet” Calupitan:
1) What do you do?
I am doing a Ph.D. in Materials Science/Nanochemistry. I engineer molecules that reversibly change their color when we shine light on them. So we have a single thing that has 2 possible states, one can be assigned to 0, another to 1, similar to transistors which are in the PC/phone you’re using to read this. We try to put these molecules on a solid surface and attempt something similar to a molecular circuit. Molecules are way smaller than transistors so we can put more in smaller networks, for faster and smaller computers!
2) Where do you work?
I am affiliated in a double degree program of two institutions for my PhD: the Nara Institute of Science and Technology in Nara, Japan and CEMES-CNRS, University of Paul-Sabatier in Toulouse, France.
Perks: I travel between the two countries, and, on a more serious level, both institutions will grant me a diploma (hopefully) after!
3) Tell us about the photos!
[Left:] Me with my reaction for ‘cooking’ molecules. Since they are light-sensitive, we have to work under red-light, the color of light that is least energetic to affect my molecules. There is some sort of mist around the reaction– it’s not magic– it’s just water vapor condensing around the reaction vapor since my reactions are at low temperature.
[Right:] That’s me by the Mediterranean Sea on a beach in Barcelona, Spain which is near from where I am based in southern France. Since I am near along the Franco-Spanish border, I would go exploring cities and towns along it during weekends.
4) Tell us about your academic career path so far.
I graduated from Lamao Elementary School, a public school in my hometown in Lamao, Limay, Bataan. I studied high school in Tomas del Rosario College in Balanga City, Bataan. I finished BS Chemistry minor in Philosophy and in French in Ateneo de Manila University in 2012. The next year, in 2013, I finished my MS in the same university.
Then, I taught chemistry and became a research assistant for the next two years April 2013 – March 2015 in the Department of Chemistry in Ateneo. In April of 2015, I started my PhD program.
5) Anything else you want to share?
Doing science in a different country allows you to immerse yourself in a different culture. I’m lucky to experience both the most communal of the East and (probably) the most individualistic of the West. Working with the Japanese and the French allows me to balance the merits and pitfalls of their two cultures. The three years divided between the two countries are of course not enough to learn everything, but I found two powerful avenues to access foreign culture: food and language. On the side of PhD work, I explore eating local food, learn how to cook it, eat, study the language, eat, participate in language courses, eat, read books, eat, speak with locals, and eat!
Other than the science, this access to a different culture makes the experience interesting– and yummy. You can follow my thoughts at http://magtanong.wordpress.com (which I try very, very hard to update) and photos of food and travel and some tidbits about scientific work on my Instagram at japjaphet.
Exotic quantum effects can govern the chemistry around us
Objects of the quantum world are of a concealed and cold-blooded nature: they usually behave in a quantum manner only when they are significantly cooled and isolated from the environment. Experiments carried out by chemists and physicists from Warsaw have destroyed this simple picture. It turns out that not only does one of the most interesting quantum effects occur at room temperature and higher, but it plays a dominant role in the course of chemical reactions in solutions!
We generally derive our experimental knowledge of quantum phenomena from experiments carried out using sophisticated equipment under exotic conditions: at extremely low temperatures and in a vacuum, isolating quantum objects from the disturbing influence of the environment. Scientists from the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IPC PAS) in Warsaw, led by Prof. Jacek Waluk and Prof. Czeslaw Radzewicz's group from the Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw (FUW), have just shown that one of the most spectacular quantum phenomena – that of tunneling – takes place even at temperatures above the boiling point of water. However, what is particularly surprising is the fact that the observed effect applies to hydrogen nuclei, which tunnel in particles floating in solution. The results of measurements leave no doubt: in the studied system, in conditions typical for our environment, tunneling turns out to be the main factor responsible for the chemical reaction!
“For some time chemists have been getting used to the idea that electrons in molecules can tunnel. We have shown that in the molecule it is also possible for protons, that is, nuclei of hydrogen atoms, to tunnel. So we have proof that a basic chemical reaction can occur as a result of tunneling, and in addition in solution and at room temperature or higher,” explains Prof. Waluk.
In their experiments, the Warsaw researchers studied single molecules of porphycene (C20H14N4), an isomer of porphyrin. Compounds belonging to this group occur naturally, for example in human blood, where they are involved in the transport of oxygen. Their molecules are in the form of planar carbon rings with hydrogen atoms outside and four nitrogen atoms inside, arranged at the corners of a tetragon. In the space surrounded by nitrogen atoms there are two protons. These protons are able to move between the nitrogen atoms. The open question was whether they do so by moving classically, or by tunneling.
Tunneling is a consequence of the probabilistic nature of quantum objects. In the classical world known to us from everyday life, an object will always with total probability be in one place, and therefore with zero probability in all others. Not so in the quantum world. When nothing disturbs the state of an elementary particle, atom or small group of them, the probability of the existence of a quantum object dissolves in space. This phenomenon leads to spectacular effects. When a man wants to surmount a wall, he has to climb it, that is, he has to strenuously increase his gravitational energy until it becomes greater than the potential barrier set by the wall. Meanwhile, the indeterminacy of the quantum object means that it can be found on the other side of the barrier, without increasing its energy – simply 'passing through'. The effect occurs much faster than ordinary transfer in space and with a probability that is greater the smaller the distance over which the object tunnels. By studying the times of the proton's jumps, it can be determined if they have moved classically or if they have tunneled.
“Reality is less clear-cut. The higher our proton climbs the energy ladder of porphycene, the smaller the width of the barrier to overcome. Tunneling then becomes increasingly likely. So everything indicates that before the proton has time to climb to an energy level allowing it to classically overcome the potential barrier, it has usually tunneled anyway,” explains Prof. Waluk.
Climbing the potential barrier is not simple. When we supply the protons in porphycene with energy, we also induce various vibrations in the molecule itself. It turns out that among 108 possible modes of vibration in a molecule of porphycene, some increase the probability of tunneling and others decrease it. The Warsaw-based researchers, funded by grants from the Polish National Science Centre, determined the rate constants of chemical reactions involving porphycene in the temperature range from 20 to 400 Kelvin, for proton jumps occurring in the lowest energy state of the molecule, and in one of the excited vibrational states, promoting tunneling. The times of proton jumps between the nitrogen atoms were thus obtained. Experiments conducted on sets of cold, isolated particles suggested times of a few picoseconds (a millionth of one millionth of a second) – and just such times were observed in experiments in Warsaw, led by Dr. Piotr Fita and PhD student Piotr Ciacka from the FUW. Measurements show that not only does tunneling occur in porphycene, but it is responsible – even at room temperature! – for at least 80% of the proton jumps in the centres of the molecules.
The dominant role of tunneling in the course of a chemical reaction and its dependence on the type of vibration of the molecule is the way to incredibly precise control of the course of chemical reactions. This sort of chemistry, known as mode-selective chemistry, has been demonstrated earlier, but at a very low temperature. The discovery of the researchers from the IPC PAS and the FUW raises hopes that in the future it will be possible to accurately control reactions taking place also under conditions typical for our environment. Chemical molecules floating in solution, previously excited in a manner that enhances their reactivity, could be introduced into a state of oscillation that significantly reduces their reactivity (or vice versa). A specific reaction, perhaps one of many taking place in the solution, could then be switched on and off on demand, by small changes in the amount of energy supplied to the molecules of a selected compound.
“The tunneling of protons in molecules of porphycene in solution is spectacular proof that even at room temperature and in a dense environment a purely quantum effect can rule the course of a chemical reaction. But this is not the end of the surprises. We have a reasonable suspicion that one more exotic quantum phenomenon is involved in the movements of the two protons in porphycene, always jumping together. The world of chemistry around us would then be even more interesting. Whether this will happen – we will learn from further experiments,” says Prof. Waluk.
Reference:
“Evidence for Dominant Role of Tunneling in Condensed Phases and at High Temperatures: Double Hydrogen Transfer in Porphycenes”; P. Ciąćka, P. Fita, A. Listkowski, Cz. Radzewicz, J. Waluk; Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters 2016, 7, 283-288; DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.5b02482
Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences
