05 Sci-Tech

A new type of agriculture called “electro-agriculture” could free humans from the vagaries of climate and enable them to grow reliable plant products under all conditions, including in the middle of the night. The method so far is a theory that appears on the Cell Press Journal Joule.

Essentially, a chemical reaction would be created through solar-powered electricity that would convert the CO2 in the air to something a plant can simply “eat” without photosynthesis. The plants will be genetically engineered to be able to do this.

Biological engineer Robert Jinkerson of University of California, Riverside, a corresponding author of the article, spoke of the potential, stating, “If we don’t need to grow plants with sunlight anymore, then we can decouple agriculture from the environment and grow food in indoor, controlled environments. I think that we need to move agriculture into the next phase of technology and producing it in a controlled way that is decoupled from nature has to be the next step. The whole point of this new process to try to boost the efficiency of photosynthesis. Right now, we are at about 4% efficiency…”

With ‘electro-agriculture,’ plants can produce food in the dark and with 94% less land, bioengineers say– www.sciencedaily.com
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Photosynthesis, the chemical reaction that enables almost all life on Earth, is extremely inefficient at capturing energy — only around 1% of light energy that a plant absorbs is converted into chemical energy within the plant. In a perspective paper publishing October 23 in the Cell Press journal Joule, bioengineers propose a radical new method of food production that they call “electro-agriculture.” The method essentially replaces photosynthesis with a solar-powered chemical reaction that more efficiently converts CO₂ into an organic molecule that plants would be genetically engineered to “eat.” The researchers estimate that if all food in the US were produced using electro-agriculture, it would reduce the amount of land needed for agriculture by 94%. The method could also be used to grow food in space.

“If we don’t need to grow plants with sunlight anymore, then we can decouple agriculture from the environment and grow food in indoor, controlled environments,” says corresponding author and biological engineer Robert Jinkerson of University of California, Riverside. “I think that we need to move agriculture into the next phase of technology, and producing it in a controlled way that is decoupled from nature has to be the next step.”

Electro-agriculture would mean replacing agricultural fields with multi-story buildings. Solar panels on or near the buildings would absorb the sun’s radiation, and this energy would power a chemical reaction between CO₂ and water to produce acetate — a molecule similar to acetic acid, the main component in vinegar. The acetate would then be used to feed plants that are grown hydroponically. The method could also be used to grow other food-producing organisms, since acetate is naturally used by mushrooms, yeast, and algae.

“The whole point of this new process to try to boost the efficiency of photosynthesis,” says senior author Feng Jiao, an electrochemist at Washington University in St. Louis. “Right now, we are at about 4% efficiency, which is already four times higher than for photosynthesis, and because everything is more efficient with this method, the CO₂ footprint associated with the production of the food becomes much smaller.”

To genetically engineer acetate-eating plants, the researchers are taking advantage of a metabolic pathway that germinating plants use to break down food stored in their seeds. This pathway is switched off once plants become capable of photosynthesis, but switching it back on would enable them to use acetate as a source of energy and carbon.

“We’re trying to turn this pathway back on in adult plants and reawaken their native ability to utilize acetate,” says Jinkerson. “It’s analogous to lactose intolerance in humans — as babies we can digest lactose in milk, but for many people that pathway is turned off when they grow up. It’s kind of the same idea, only for plants.”

 MIT researchers discovered a way to print electronics components along with transistors without using semiconductors. The new 3D print method could open up 3D electronic printing as it dramatically reduces the cost of production.

Luis Fernando Velazquez-Garcia, principal scientist on the project, said of their discovery, “We saw that this is something that can help take 3D printing equipment to the next level. This method offers a clear way to provide a certain degree of “intelligence” to an electronic device. The reality is that there are many engineering situations that don’t require the best chips. At the end of the day, all you care about is whether your device can perform the task. This technology is capable of meeting some of the “constraints.”

MIT accidentally invented 3D printing of simple electronics without semiconductors – ITC
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Researchers at MIT have unexpectedly found a way to make transistors and other electronics components without using semiconductors.

The main problem with 3D printing electronics is that semiconductor elements consist of thin layers of silicon and are extremely fragile. Their functionality can be affected by dust, temperature, and humidity. Therefore, the chips are created in clean rooms where all factors are strictly controlled to ensure that the chips work accurately.

Modern chip design is extremely complex: they consist of billions of transistors and are manufactured using nanometer-scale technology. This process is much more precise than the capabilities of modern 3D printers allow.

The MIT scientists didn’t actually try to reproduce modern chips or even think about something like this — the opportunity arose almost by accident. Earlier this year, they made magnetic inductor coils using a process called extrusion printing — where a printer melts filament and sprays the material through a nozzle, making the object layer by layer.