In the heart of the Cidade Universitária, an end-of-life shipping container, LxCrop, has gained a new purpose: it has been transformed into a sustainable hydroponic growing laboratory. Inside this compact space, vertical shelves house plants that grow without soil, nourished by optimized solutions and illuminated by low-energy LED lamps. The great innovation of this urban laboratory lies in the reuse of treated wastewater, enriched with essential nutrients and synthetic microbial communities. Nitrogen-fixing microorganisms, phosphate solubilizers, and producers of phytohormones and growth factors work in symbiosis, ensuring the healthy development of plants and demonstrating new possibilities for implementing a circular economy.
By promoting local consumption and optimizing water and energy resources, this system reduces the carbon footprint of agricultural production. The result? Fresh, nutritious vegetables, produced directly where people live. This transformed container is more than a laboratory: it's a concrete example of how technology and science can revolutionize urban agriculture, making it more efficient, resilient, and accessible to all. A job that started with a project FCT (PTDC/ASP-HOR/29187/2017) and which continues to evolve with new challenges such as the fermentation of agricultural waste and the production of biomaterials.
