Electrolyte with Ultra-High Salt Concentration

The team will design and produce experiments to determine the effectiveness of electrospraying water with dissolved nutrients (fertilizer) on multiple surfaces including plant roots. The experiments will be based on the initial results from Comsol multiphysics models, New Ideas Challenge/Kickstart results and decades of research in electrostatics and botany by the Electrostatics Surface Physics Lab (KSC), Ed Law (U of Georgia), Ken Giles (UC Davis) and Hazel Wetzstein (Purdue). We will accelerate development time by repurposing an existing UC Davis lab experiment used for electrostatic control of pesticide and pollen delivery. Key technical challenges: control of droplet size, charge and velocity to deliver the appropriate amount of water for each root structure.

The current state of the art in delivery of water to plants in microgravity uses: 1) an actively controlled system, which delivers water to the roots through porous tubes (Advanced Plant Habitat), and 2) a passive system with a single-use pillow which holds water close to the roots (VEGGIE). The porous tubes provide a controlled delivery of water, but have issues with plant roots which can wrap around the tubes as they grow. The pillows accommodate plant roots, but as a passive system, have issues with the water delivery rate and are discarded after a single use. In both systems, proper aeration, which is critical to plant health, can become a problem if water stays next to the roots for an extended period. Electrostatically controlled aeroponics supports the goals of precise water delivery, proper root growth, high root aeration and a high reusability.

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