Story: “Even in Canada we were approached about our nomination”

In 2022, CE-Line will launch the ‘plug-and-play laboratory’ as an independent company. “That’s also when I joined,” says Simon. “CE-Line was created from an innovation for dairy farmers, in which the milk was tested before it ended up in the milk tank. Due to the rise of water recirculation in horticulture, the Dutch horticulture sector was interested in the system. Our engineers then converted it to analyze the flow of nutrients in the greenhouse.”

20,000 volts

What the system does is take a sample of the water before it goes into the greenhouse, and again when it has been captured. “That goes straight into a tube that is less than half a hair wide,” says Simon. “We blast 20,000 volts through it, causing the ions of the nutrients to shoot to the positive or negative pole. Each molecule has a different size and therefore arrives at a different time. We know which nutrient has which speed, and so we can count which nutrients are present in the water. Where the molecules of nutrients overlap in size, we can use applied chemistry to separate them from each other in arrival time.”

Millisecond

This ingenious system therefore involves chemistry, but also hardware and software. “All electronics in the cabinet must be real-time, and the same goes for the software. A millisecond difference or delay already causes an incorrect analysis,” Simon explains. “Now that we have automated this engineering in our system, we can also develop it further. And you can see that there has been a lot of interest in this over the past year.”

When growers see what the system does, they are blown away.

– SIMON MEIJER, CEO CE-LINE

Evangelize

The market launch was very exciting for CE-Line. “The first few devices flew off the shelves to growers who immediately saw the added value,” says Simon. “Gitzels is an example of that. Then we had to explain the story to the rest of the world, via trade fairs and visits worldwide. That’s when you’re really preaching the gospel.”

CE-Line is now operational worldwide, from Singapore to LA, from New York to Norway. “When growers see what the system does, they are blown away. An experienced cultivation specialist told me that he would have liked to have had the CE-Line twenty years earlier, that would have saved a lot of gray hairs. Then you know you have something good in your hands. We now receive requests every week, and research institutes such as the WUR and Delphy are also working with it.”

Time zones

For the team, too, market launch meant a major change. “I’m really proud of this team,” says Simon. “We had to change from a group of engineers who were fully focused on the R&D of this system to an internationally operating production company. The team took this on enthusiastically, and they are very involved. Going to trade fairs, and also being online at crazy times to help customers in other time zones with the implementation or operation of the CE-Line system. Really great to see.”

CE-Line has been nominated for the Theme Award ‘Future-proof technologies’. “It’s fun to show what we’re doing via this stage”, Simon concludes. “Even in Canada we were approached about our nomination, great to be able to tell your story this way!”