Development of strategies to improve quality and safety and reduce cost of production in organic and ‘low input‘ crop production systems

The overall aims of organic and low input crop production include the economically viable and environmentally sound production of high quality food and feed. Technological bottlenecks in such systems include insufficient and instable yields and in some instances unsatisfactory processing, sensory and/or nutritional quality of the final product. Recently, concerns have also been raised that the intensive use of manures may lead to increased risk for contamination of food by enteropathogenic micro-organisms. Crop production in low input systems is based on key pillars, i.e. (i) a fertile soil which provides sufficient capacity to allow for plant growth while preventing soil-borne diseases, (ii) high quality, disease-free seeds and plant material, (iii) a crop-specific soil fertility management to provide sufficient nutrients for optimum plant growth, and (iv) adequate crop protection techniques to prevent damage due to noxious organisms. In the QLIF project we develop improved component strategies to overcome technological bottlenecks in annual (wheat, lettuce, tomato) and perennial (apple) crop production systems. In this paper we report the progress achieved so far

Silicon on ceramic process. Silicon sheet growth development for the large-area silicon sheet task of the low-cost silicon solar array project

The technical and economic feasibility of producing solar-cell-quality sheet silicon was investigated. The sheets were made by coating one surface of carbonized ceramic substrates with a thin layer of large-grain polycrystalline silicon from the melt. Significant progress was made in all areas of the program

Zircon record of fractionation, hydrous partial melting and thermal gradients at different depths in oceanic crust (ODP Site 735B, South-West Indian Ocean)

Felsic veins (plagiogranites) are distributed throughout the whole oceanic crust section and offer insight into late-magmatic/high temperature hydrothermal processes within the oceanic crust. Despite constituting only 0.5% of the oceanic crust section drilled in IODP Site 735B, they carry a significant budget of incompatible elements, which they redistribute within the crust. Such melts are saturated in accessory minerals, such as zircon, titanite and apatite, and often zircon is the only remaining phase that preserves magmatic composition and records processes of felsic melt formation and evolution. In this study, we analysed zircon from four depths in IODP Site 735B; they come from the oxide gabbro (depth approximately 250 m below sea floor) and plagiogranite (depths c. 500, 860, 940 m below sea floor). All zircons have similar εHf composition of c. 15 units indicating an isotopically homogenous source for the mafic magmas forming IODP Site 735B gabbro. Zircons from oxide gabbro are scarce and variable in composition consistent with their crystallization from melts formed by both fractionation of mafic magmas and hydrous remelting of gabbro cumulate. On the other hand, zircon from plagiogranite is abundant and each sample is characterized by compositional trends consistent with crystallization of zircon in an evolving melt. However, the trends are different between the plagiogranite at 500 m bsf and the deeper sections, which are interpreted as the record of plagiogranite formation by two processes: remelting of gabbro cumulate at 500 m bsf and fractionation at deeper sections. Zircon from both oxide gabbro and plagiogranite has δ18O from 3.5 to 6.0‰. Values of δ18O are best explained by redistribution of δ18O in a thermal gradient and not by remelting of hydrothermally altered crust. Tentatively, it is suggested that fractionation could be an older episode contemporaneous with gabbro crystallization and remelting could be a younger one, triggered by deformation and uplift of the crustal pile.1017/S/ING/15-

Dip-coating process: Silicon sheet growth development for the large-area silicon sheet task of the low-cost silicon solar array project

The objective of this research program is to investigate the technical and economic feasibility of producing solar-cell-quality sheet silicon by coating one surface of carbonized ceramic substrates with a thin layer of large-grain polycrystalline silicon from the melt. The past quarter demonstrated significant progress in several areas. Seeded growth of silicon-on-ceramic (SOC) with an EFG ribbon seed was demonstrated. Different types of mullite were successfully coated with silicon. A new method of deriving minority carrier diffusion length, L sub n from spectral response measurements was evaluated. ECOMOD cost projections were found to be in good agreement with the interim SAMIS method proposed by JPL. On the less positive side, there was a decrease in cell performance which we believe to be due to an unidentified source of impurities

Silicon on Ceramic Process: Silicon Sheet Growth and Device Development for the Large-area Silicon Sheet and Cell Development Tasks of the Low-cost Solar Array Project

The technical and economic feasibility of producing solar cell quality sheet silicon was investigated. It was hoped this could be done by coating one surface of carbonized ceramic substrates with a thin layer of large-grain polycrystalline silicon from the melt. Work was directed towards the solution of unique cell processing/design problems encountered with the silicon-ceramic (SOC) material due to its intimate contact with the ceramic substrate. Significant progress was demonstrated in the following areas; (1) the continuous coater succeeded in producing small-area coatings exhibiting unidirectional solidification and substatial grain size; (2) dip coater succeeded in producing thick (more than 500 micron) dendritic layers at coating speeds of 0.2-0.3 cm/sec; and (3) a standard for producing total area SOC solar cells using slotted ceramic substrates was developed

Transition jump system for the Fermilab Booster

A transition-jump system recently installed in the Fermilab Booster is described. Early results of the commissioning are presented. 13 refs., 7 figs