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Engineered Biology for Engineered Environments

Heike Sederoff, PhD, Professor of Plant and Microbial Biology, NC State

Website | @hsederoff

Addressing the energy problem of greenhouse agriculture

Abstract

Greenhouse agriculture is in general more sustainable than any open field production - if it wasn't for the enormous consumption of energy for light and space conditioning. I will present and discuss our development of a new type of self-powering greenhouse that uses semi-transparent organic photovoltaics to control radiation and produce energy. How far can we drive this technology? Which crops can be grown and how can biotechnology further facilitate economic viability of these solar greenhouses?

Related links:

• Next Generation of Greenhouses May Be Fully Solar Powered,  NC State News, 2/7/2020
• Study Finds Plants Would Grow Well in Solar Cell Greenhouses, NC State News, 3/17/2021

• Achieving Net Zero Energy Greenhouses by Integrating Semitransparent Organic Solar Cells (PDF) Ravishankar, E. Booth, R.E., Saravitz, C., Sederoff, H., Ade, H.W., O’Connor, B.T. Joule, 2020, doi: 10.1016/j.joule.2019.12.018

• Balancing crop production and energy harvesting in organic solar-powered greenhouses (PDF) Ravishankar, E., Charles, M., Xiong, Y., Henry, R., Swift, J., Sederoff, H. et al. Cell Reports Physical Science, 2021 doi: 10.1016/j.xcrp.2021.100381

Speaker Bio

Born and schooled in Northern Germany, Dr. Heike Sederoff completed an apprenticeship in book production and trade, but then went on to study chemistry at the University of Goettingen where she received a PhD in plant biochemistry. She was awarded a Feodor-Lynen Fellowship from the Humboldt Foundation in Germany to study the interaction of bacteria and plants to form nodules for atmospheric nitrogen assimilation at Flinders University in Adelaide and at the University of Western Australia in Perth. Dr. Sederoff was a faculty member in at the University of Osnabrueck, back in Germany and later here at NC State. Her interests in science are very broad and she especially likes to collaborate across disciplines in natural sciences, engineering, and medicine. This has resulted in a number of licensed patents and experience as expert consultant in patent disputes. The research topics in her team span from questions how plants sense and respond to environmental stress to the use of synthetic biology to improve sustainability of crop production – on Earth and in extraterrestrial settings.

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