Sumatrix Biotech

One of the biggest challenges facing the world in the coming decades are how to feed and shelter a growing population and protect existing natural resources and the environment at the same time. Agriculture will play an important role in achieving this goal. Hydroponics technology can be efficiently harnessed for food production in extreme environmental ecosystems such as deserts, mountainous regions or arctic communities. However, the two main bottlenecks in hydroponic farming technologies are the ecologically unsustainable growth substrates and the high crop loss during disease incidence due to water contamination. Therefore, there is a need for sustainable new plant growing media. 

Sumatrix Biotech produces an industrial waste-based, natural and cost-effective plant growth media, hydrogel-based for agriculture and hydroponic farming. Sumatrix Growing Media has a water holding capacity of 98% and thanks to the functional groups in its structure, it retains the necessary nutrients and water for the plant. The hydroponic system does not need a continuous flow of nutrients and water. In this way, it reduces operational costs by 25%. Thanks to its nanopore structure, Sumatrix Growing Media prevents the penetration of microbes and reduces the risk of crop loss due to contamination. 

The solution helps commercial hydroponic farmers avoid water or growth media-related diseases, and thus prevents 12-17% yield loss. With its porous structure, their plant growth media has 98% water holding capacity, which frees the overall system from closed water circulation system and reduces operational costs. Also, due to its unique circular economy-based production protocol, their solution provides loop-based production and generates no waste disposal problems.  

When compared to already existing plant growth media production, whose energy consumption per cubic meters ranges between 147-250 KW, Sumatrix significantly reduces that to 0.06 KW. The water consumption of competitors per cubic meters lies between 3.9 to 1.3 cubic meters, while their solution results in only 0.03 cubic meters of water consumption. Finally, carbon dioxide emissions during production typically varies between 32-670 kg per cubic meters, while with their solution only 1.60 kg carbon dioxide is emitted under the same conditions. 

“BOOST is an excellent acceleration programme which encourages women innovators to take further steps in their businesses. This 12-week learning journey advanced our business and mindset for improving social impact through our innovations.“

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