Competitive Advantages
- Enables automatic and passive smart control of greenhouse humidity levels.
- Less expensive and less labor- and energy-intensive than current humidity management systems.
- More effective humidity control will help mitigate disease spread and insect breeding inside greenhouses.
- Can also be used, with graphene, to manufacture smart humidity sensors.
Summary
Our inventors have created a novel humidity sensitive greenhouse cover made of polyethylene glycol (PEG)/ cellulose acetate (CA) blended sensitive films that enables a smart control humidity management system. Corona electrostatic printing (CEP) technology is used to manufacture the PEG/CA humidity sensor by utilizing the PEG/CA film as the substrate which can interact with humidity, and CEP printed graphene network to detect the strain in the film and reflect the humidity change. Thus, this smart material can detect when humidity is too high inside the greenhouse, and automatically and reversibly opens the cover to adjust ventilation accordingly. This in turn adjusts humidity and temperature levels within the greenhouse, protecting plants from disease, algae, and insects while improving their transpiration and yield. Once the polymer blend senses an adequately lower humidity gradient, it will close the cover to maintain that desired level. Compared with current greenhouse covers and humidity management techniques, this smart cover requires far less monetary, energy, and labor investment and is thus much more desirable.
Experiments setups and procedures. a) Blade coating of single-layer PEG/CA blend film; b) blade coating of double-layer film made by PEG and CA layer; c) humidity chamber setup to evaluate the bending behavior of the PEG/CA film and its capability to reduce the humidity in a lab scale greenhouse.
Desired Partnerships
- License
- Sponsored Research
- Co-Development