Digital Twins in Agriculture: Orchestration and Applications.

Digital Twins have emerged as an outstanding opportunity for precision farming, digitally replicating in real-time the functionalities of objects and plants. A virtual replica of the crop, including key agronomic development aspects such as irrigation, optimal fertilization strategies, and pest management, can support decision-making and a step change in farm management, increasing overall sustainability and direct water, fertilizer, and pesticide savings. In this review, Digital Twin technology is critically reviewed and framed in the context of recent advances in precision agriculture and Agriculture 4.0. The review is organized for each step of agricultural lifecycle, edaphic, phytotechnologic, postharvest, and farm infrastructure, with supporting case studies demonstrating direct benefits for agriculture production and supply chain considering both benefits and limitations of such an approach. Challenges and limitations are disclosed regarding the complexity of managing such an amount of data and a multitude of (often) simultaneous operations and supports.

Nanofood Process Technology: Insights on How Sustainability Informs Process Design.

Nanostructured products are an actively growing area for food research, but there is little information on the sustainability of processes used to make these products. In this Review, we advocate for selection of sustainable process technologies during initial stages of laboratory-scale developments of nanofoods. We show that selection is assisted by predictive sustainability assessment(s) based on conventional technologies, including exploratory ex ante and "anticipatory" life-cycle assessment. We demonstrate that sustainability assessments for conventional food process technologies can be leveraged to design nanofood process concepts and technologies. We critically review emerging nanostructured food products including encapsulated bioactive molecules and processes used to structure these foods at laboratory, pilot, and industrial scales. We apply a rational method via learning lessons from sustainability of unit operations in conventional food processing and critically apportioned lessons between emerging and conventional approaches. We conclude that this method provides a quantitative means to incorporate sustainability during process design for nanostructured foods. Findings will be of interest and benefit to a range of food researchers, engineers, and manufacturers of process equipment.

Definition of agronomic circular economy metrics and use for assessment for a nanofertilizer case study.

Circular economy has become global priority, and fertigation make large contribution. Modern circular methodologies base their definitions, besides on waste minimisation and recovery, on the product usage U and lifetime L. We have modified a commonly used equation for the mass circularity indicator (MCI) to permit MCI determination for agricultural cultivation. We defined U as intensity for diverse investigated parameters of plant growth and L as the bioavailability period. In this way, we compute circularity metrics for the plantgrowth performance when exposed to three nanofertilizers and one biostimulant, as compared to no-use of micronutrients (control 1), and micronutrients supplied via conventional fertilizers (control 2). We determined an MCI of 0.839 for best nanofertilizer performance (1.000 denotes full circularity), while the MCI of conventional fertilizer was 0.364. Normalised to control 1, U was determined as 1.196, 1.121 and 1.149 for manganese, copper and iron-based nanofertilizers, respectively, while U was 1.709, 1.432, 1.424 and 1.259 for manganese, copper, iron nanofertilizers and gold biostimulant when normalised to control 2, respectively. Based on the learning of the plant growth experiments, a tailored process design is proposed for the use of nanoparticles with pre-conditioning, post-processing and recycling steps. A life cycle assessment shows that the additional use of pumps for this process design does not increase energy costs, while preserving environmental advantages related to the lower water usage of the nanofertilizers. Moreover, the impact of the losses of conventional fertilisers by missing absorption of plant roots, which is presumed to be lower for the nanofertilizers.

Space farming: Horticulture systems on spacecraft and outlook to planetary space exploration.

Successful human space exploration requires more products than can be taken as payload. There is a need, therefore, for in-space circular manufacturing. Requirements for this include limited resource inflow, from either Earth or other planets and the generation of minimal waste. The provision of nutritious food is a clear need for human survival on the Moon or Mars and is one of the most complex to solve. Demand in large quantities, constant and reliable provision of food requires the development of specialist agricultural technologies. Here, we first review the history of space farming over the past five decades. This survey assesses the technologies which have been tested under the harsh conditions of space, identifying which modern horticultural components are applicable for in-space plant growth. We then outline which plants have been grown and under what conditions, and speculate upon the types of plants that could be selected to best nourish astronauts. Current systems are focussed on experimentation and exploration, but do not yet provide turn-key solutions for efficient food production within a long-term space exploration scenario. With that take, this review aims to provide a perspective on how an engineered closed circular environmental life-support system (ECCLES) might be constructed. To exemplify the latter, nutrient auto accumulation by biofortification is proposed through the integration of space farming and space mining, which is uncharted on Earth.

Microfluidic encapsulation for controlled release and its potential for nanofertilisers.

Nanotechnology is increasingly being utilized to create advanced materials with improved or new functional attributes. Converting fertilizers into a nanoparticle-form has been shown to improve their efficacy but the current procedures used to fabricate nanofertilisers often have poor reproducibility and flexibility. Microfluidic systems, on the other hand, have advantages over traditional nanoparticle fabrication methods in terms of energy and materials consumption, versatility, and controllability. The increased controllability can result in the formation of nanoparticles with precise and complex morphologies (e.g., tuneable sizes, low polydispersity, and multi-core structures). As a result, their functional performance can be tailored to specific applications. This paper reviews the principles, formation, and applications of nano-enabled delivery systems fabricated using microfluidic approaches for the encapsulation, protection, and release of fertilizers. Controlled release can be achieved using two main routes: (i) nutrients adsorbed on nanosupports and (ii) nutrients encapsulated inside nanostructures. We aim to highlight the opportunities for preparing a new generation of highly versatile nanofertilisers using microfluidic systems. We will explore several main characteristics of microfluidically prepared nanofertilisers, including droplet formation, shell fine-tuning, adsorbate fine-tuning, and sustained/triggered release behavior.

Multistep Solvent-Free 3 m2 Footprint Pilot Miniplant for the Synthesis of Annual Half-Ton Rufinamide Precursor.

The development of a pilot-scale synthesis of the rufinamide precursor in flow chemistry is reported. Complex steps such as Taylor-flow, segmented flow, and high-temperature processing at high pressure (high-p,T) are successfully combined, overcoming the mixing and heat transfer issues of the scale-up. The cascaded multistep process operates essentially solvent-free in just 3 m2 giving a productivity of 47 g/h (>400 kg/year), which increases by a factor of 7 the lab-scale productivity previously reported as a scale-up proof-of-concept. This publication also includes an economic study of the feasible implementation of this technology for a possible manufacturer, as well as an outline on business development strategies of how to implement such a disruptive technology.

Continuous-Flow In-Line Solvent-Swap Crystallization of Vitamin D3.

A continuous tandem in-line evaporation-crystallization is presented. The process includes an in-line solvent-swap step, suitable to be coupled to a capillary based cooler. As a proof of concept, this setup is tested in a direct in-line acetonitrile mediated crystallization of Vitamin D3. This configuration is suitable to be coupled to a new end-to-end continuous microflow synthesis of Vitamin D3. By this procedure, vitamin particles can be crystallized in continuous flow and isolated using an in-line continuous filtration step. In one run in just 1 min of cooling time, ∼50% (w/w) crystals of Vitamin D3 are directly obtained. Furthermore, the polymorphic form as well as crystals shape and size properties are described in this paper.

Microflow High-p,T Intensification of Vitamin D3 Synthesis Using an Ultraviolet Lamp.

Herewith a new process concept for synthesis is presented which combines both UV-photoirradiation and high-p,T intensification (photo-high-p,T) in continuous flow. The application of this procedure to Vitamin D3 synthesis promotes thermal shifting of the equilibrium from the reaction intermediate to the product. This is enabled by microreactors which allow operation under harsh conditions such as the high temperature used here. This provides, to our best knowledge, a new kind of process combination (novel process window). As a result, in less than 1 min, 42% conversion of 7-dehydrocholesterol can be achieved giving a 17% yield and 40% selectivity of Vitamin D3. This approach enhances productivity by up to 2 orders of magnitude compared with the current capillary based vitamin D3 synthesis, because, under the microflow conditions, photochemistry can be performed at fairly high concentration and up to 20 times faster.