Growing food in space is a lot harder than you might think. Because of ethylene. gas that all growing plants generate.

Just as in a cold storage, in a spacecraft, ethylene build-up kills destroy the plants and vegetables it would normally ripen. As well as plant to plant cross contamination, NASA needed to develop technology to destroy the gas so food could be grown and enable deep-space travel to move forward.

The Mission: clear the air of ethylene gas and VOCs.

It had to be virtually maintenance free, take up very little space, produce no Ozone or any other harmful byproducts, use very little power, and eliminate unwanted ethylene.

A unique air purification technology was invented.

A hybrid nano-technology, based on the evolution of photocatalytic oxidation (PCO). It uses no filters. It deconstructs organic gasses at a molecular level on contact, converting them to CO2 and water vapor.

What it was done for the space program, now can be done on your cold storage and perishable retail business too.

Grocery Food Waste $16Bn in North America Survey released by Coresight Research.

• “51% grocery retailers said they do not YET have the technology they need to prioritize food waste-reduction.” 

• Next 2 years: “planning to invest in technology to reduce amount of food they aren’t able to sell or have to write off” 

• “90% grocery retailers consider reducing food waste to be key to meeting their corporate sustainability targets.”

Food supply shortages have left 3 billion people malnourished globally with iron deficiency affecting 2 billion people and protein/calorie deficiencies affecting nearly 800 million people [25]. 

Changes to climate and population health have made evident the precarious balance between sustainable food production practices, a healthy environment, and a healthy population.
Among some of the more serious environmental concerns we face are land use change and extensive reduction in biodiversity, aquatic eutrophication by nitrogenous substances caused by over-fertilization, global warming caused by enteric fermentation and use of fossil fuels, aquatic eutrophication by phosphorous substances caused by fertilizers overuse, water shortages due to irrigation, ecotoxicity, and human effects of pesticides [7]. 

30–50 % of food produced is wasted while most land and aquatic resources are overused [4].

Our solutions help reduce water consumption in the field while keeping harvested crops healthier longer.