Plant cultivation facility

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10194596-B2
Application number	US-201514866821-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 25, 2015
Priority date	Mar 28, 2013
Publication date	Feb 5, 2019
Grant date	Feb 5, 2019

Abstract

An object of the present invention is to provide an organism cultivation facility suitable for industrial, economical, and large-scale cultivation of an organism by efficient air conditioning which is required for the cultivation of the organism. The object can be achieved with an organism cultivation facility comprising, in a building: a cultivation unit having organism containers capable of storing organisms, and a support structure that supports the organism containers; and a conveying device for the organism containers; wherein the organism cultivation facility has a partition wall(s) that can divide the space of the operating area of the conveying device into two or more spaces in the height direction, and at least a part of the partition wall is movable.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A plant cultivation facility for cultivating a plant for protein synthesis, the plant cultivation facility comprising, in a building having a floor, a wall, and a ceiling:
a cultivation unit having plant containers capable of storing plants, and a support structure that supports the plant containers on a plurality of vertically arranged stages, said cultivation unit occupying a cultivation space;
a conveying device capable of vertically moving the plant containers in the cultivation unit for arranging the plant containers in the cultivation unit;
one or more partition walls that can vertically divide a building space in the building into two or more control spaces, wherein at least a part of the one or more partition walls has a movable section that forms an opening section allowing for vertical movement of the conveying device through the opening section; and
an air outlet and an air inlet of an air conditioner in at least each of the two or more control spaces divided by the one or more partition walls,
wherein:
the one or more partition walls are situated at a higher level in the building space than the floor of the building;
the one or more partition walls do not vertically divide the cultivation space containing the cultivation unit; and
a gap exists between the one or more partition walls and the cultivation space, such that the one or more partition walls are not connected to the support structure and do not support the support structure or the plant containers.

2. The plant cultivation facility according to claim 1 , wherein said building is a building in which said cultivation space, said conveying device, and said one or more partition walls can be made into a closed system.

3. The plant cultivation facility according to claim 1 , wherein said air outlet and said air inlet of the air conditioner are arranged on wall surfaces facing each other in at least each of said control spaces divided by said one or more partition walls.

4. The plant cultivation facility according to claim 1 , wherein the plant cultivation facility comprises a plurality of cultivation units arranged adjacent to each other along long sides thereof.

5. The plant cultivation facility according to claim 1 , wherein said opening section formed by said movable section is provided in a short-side side of said cultivation unit.

6. The plant cultivation facility according to claim 1 , wherein said opening section formed by said movable section of said partition wall is provided at an air inlet side of said cultivation unit.

7. The plant cultivation facility according to claim 1 , wherein said conveying device is arranged in a space formed between a short side of said cultivation unit and a wall surface facing said short side of said cultivation unit.

8. The plant cultivation facility according to claim 1 , wherein said support structure of said cultivation unit has a conveyor that moves said plant containers along a long-side direction of said cultivation unit.

9. The plant cultivation facility according to claim 1 , wherein said plant cultivation facility is adapted to function as a cultivation facility for cultivating a plant for protein synthesis having a recombinant gene.

10. The plant cultivation facility according to claim 1 , wherein, when said partition wall is projected from a direction of the ceiling of said plant cultivation facility, a projected area of said partition all is not less than 70% of a floor area of said building.

Assignees

• Mitsubishi Chem Corp

Inventors

• Esaki Akira
• Yoshimoto Akitoshi
• Yatsukawa Kazuhiro
• Hayashi Kazuhiro

Classifications

• A01G9/246 Primary

  Air-conditioning systems · CPC title

• A01G31/06

  Hydroponic culture on racks or in stacked containers · CPC title

• A01G9/24

  Devices {or systems} for heating, ventilating, regulating temperature {, illuminating}, or watering, in greenhouses, forcing-frames, or the like · CPC title

• A01G9/023 Primary

  Multi-tiered planters · CPC title

• Y02P60/216

  Cross-Sectional Technologies · mapped topic