Micro-Brewery Symbiosis with IOT-Enabled Controlled Environment Agriculture

Ould, Solomon

Micro-Brewery Symbiosis with IOT-Enabled Controlled Environment Agriculture

Ould, Solomon

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Publication Type:: Thesis
Issue Date:: 2024

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Ould, Solomon
dc.date.accessioned	2026-03-17T03:27:46Z
dc.date.available	2026-03-17T03:27:46Z
dc.date.issued	2024
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/194353
dc.description	University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology.	en_US.UTF-8
dc.description.abstract	To address the twin challenges of urban food security related to climate change and increasing microbrewery popularity leading to further CO₂ emissions this study designed, built, and operated a fully sealed, IoT-controlled vertical hydroponic farm (440-plant capacity) co-located inside a working brewery in Sydney, Australia. Over twelve months the enclosure was operated with various experiments performed to test the viability of different aspects of the system. A prototype low-pressure harvester diverted raw fermentation gas directly into the grow chamber for CO₂ enrichment. Continuous monitoring showed plant demand could depress internal CO₂ to 133 ppm by late afternoon (with external air exchange disabled), drawing down roughly 100 ppm day⁻¹. Direct injection restored levels to 900-1500 ppm for these experiments. Gas Chromatography confirmed a CO₂ purity of 99.975 %. Calculations were performed to determine the resulting rise in total volatile hydrocarbons for enriching the chamber from 400 ppm to 1500 ppm, showing a worst-case estimate of 2.7ppm – well below occupational hazardous exposure limits. Although further development is needed to enhance control and reliability for robust, commercially scalable deployment, directly harvesting raw brewery fermentation CO₂ would provide clear advantages such as (i) reducing breweries’ environmental footprint by capturing CO₂ otherwise released to the atmosphere; (ii) lowering growers’ input costs by removing the need for bottled CO₂; (iii) supporting a circular-economy by repurposing on-site brewery CO₂; and facilitating urban agriculture through a local, co-located source of CO₂. This work outlines a potential framework for safely capturing, metering, and injecting raw brewery fermentation CO₂ into controlled-environment agriculture, providing a foundation for future systems to expand upon.	en_US.UTF-8
dc.format	Thesis (PhD)
dc.language.iso	en_US	en_US.UTF-8
dc.relation	https://opus.lib.uts.edu.au/bitstream/10453/194353/1/thesis.pdf
dc.rights	info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
dc.rights	The author owns the copyright in this thesis including all reproduction and reuse rights for the work. The work may not be altered without the permission of the copyright owner. Attribution is essential when quoting or paraphrasing from this thesis.
dc.rights	© 2024 Solomon Ould
dc.rights	au.edu.uts.lib/cph
dc.title	Micro-Brewery Symbiosis with IOT-Enabled Controlled Environment Agriculture	en_US.UTF-8
dc.type	Thesis
utslib.copyright.status	open_access	*

Abstract:

To address the twin challenges of urban food security related to climate change and increasing microbrewery popularity leading to further CO₂ emissions this study designed, built, and operated a fully sealed, IoT-controlled vertical hydroponic farm (440-plant capacity) co-located inside a working brewery in Sydney, Australia. Over twelve months the enclosure was operated with various experiments performed to test the viability of different aspects of the system. A prototype low-pressure harvester diverted raw fermentation gas directly into the grow chamber for CO₂ enrichment. Continuous monitoring showed plant demand could depress internal CO₂ to 133 ppm by late afternoon (with external air exchange disabled), drawing down roughly 100 ppm day⁻¹. Direct injection restored levels to 900-1500 ppm for these experiments. Gas Chromatography confirmed a CO₂ purity of 99.975 %. Calculations were performed to determine the resulting rise in total volatile hydrocarbons for enriching the chamber from 400 ppm to 1500 ppm, showing a worst-case estimate of 2.7ppm – well below occupational hazardous exposure limits. Although further development is needed to enhance control and reliability for robust, commercially scalable deployment, directly harvesting raw brewery fermentation CO₂ would provide clear advantages such as (i) reducing breweries’ environmental footprint by capturing CO₂ otherwise released to the atmosphere; (ii) lowering growers’ input costs by removing the need for bottled CO₂; (iii) supporting a circular-economy by repurposing on-site brewery CO₂; and facilitating urban agriculture through a local, co-located source of CO₂. This work outlines a potential framework for safely capturing, metering, and injecting raw brewery fermentation CO₂ into controlled-environment agriculture, providing a foundation for future systems to expand upon.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10453/194353