1. Introduction

1.1 Background Research

Nowadays, food from a soilless culture is more widespread due to the limited space of cultivation, including labour costs. (Kim, 2017)

One of the biggest unsolved problems in the world is world hunger. After nearly a decade of progress, the number of people who suffer from hunger has slowly increased over the past three years, with about one in every nine people globally suffering from hunger today. 17.2% of the world population or 1.3 billion people lacked regular access to nutritious and sufficient food (UN news, 2019). Even though they are not necessarily suffering from hunger, they are at higher risk of various forms of malnutrition and poor health. More than 820 million people worldwide are still hungry (UN news,2019). Moreover, our current global situation is emphasising the issues of food shortages around the world, especially in impoverished areas.

The food shortage is expected to increase over the years as the global population rises (Stephens, 2019). Cultivating plants in soilless culture in vertical farms, also known as growing hydroponics, is especially useful to feed starving people in areas that are not suited to agriculture production. The technology, in this case enhancing plant’s growth, can be transported to desserts, rural areas and places facing famine, providing a source of cheap and nutritious food to those who need it most (Business insider, 2017). When using traditional farming, there will be an issue of the use of fertilisers and pesticides. When the plant does not absorb these chemicals, they will be washed away into rivers and cause eutrophication, an environmental threat. Instead of using fertilisers, people can use electricity. That will reduce the use of chemicals in traditional farming, which can produce healthier, organic, nutritious food for people. Hydroponics use less space as racks of plants can on top of the other. Vegetable farming can be used worldwide, regardless of climate or situation. (Ang, 2017）

Moreover, climate change is threatening global food security. Plants cannot adapt fast enough to the warming climate; its growth and health are greatly affected. Using electricity, it can help the plants to adapt to climate change. It is also cleaner to grow plants without soil as the roots are free of common soil diseases (Ang, 2017),

Hydroponics is excellent, but what if it could be improved further? By providing the hydroponic’s water solution with electricity, it could observe what nutrients it would give the plant no fertilisers offer that can enhance the plant’s growth with electricity. Hence, hydroponic farms with this technology could be placed at areas facing food shortages. That way, when growing crops, it would be more sustainable, and there would be enough food for everyone. If electricity does improve the growth of hydroponics, it will produce more food or better food quality in a shorter time; food would be easily obtained, thus leading to less hungry people in the world.

The research experiment is to find out whether electricity will enhance the growth of hydroponic plants, and what voltage would be the most suitable for it.

1.2 Research Questions 


To find the optimal voltage for plant growth

1.3 Hypothesis

Our hypothesis is that the higher the voltage across the mung plants, the faster it will grow, until a point in which the speed of the growth of the plant will drastically decrease.

1.3.1 Independent variable

The voltage across the plants

1.3.2 Dependent variable

Height of plant

1.3.3 Controlled variables

(a) Duration of electricity exposed
(b) The type of nutrients
(c) The number of nutrients
(d) The temperature of the surroundings
(e) The type of plant
(f) Type of copper strips
(g) The amount of light
(h) Type of batteries
(i) The type of crocodile clips
(e) The type of battery holder