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Controlled Environment Chamber
Controlled environment chambers, also known as growth chambers, provide a highly controlled environment in order to analyze the effects of various environmental parameters on plant function. Typically, the principle rationale behind the use of controlled environment chambers, is to determine the optimal growing set points of selected environmental parameters for the plants being grown. Sophisticated environmental control systems offer precise control of temperature, air humidity, vapor pressure deficit, air flow, lighting intensity, lighting duration, and gas composition (CO2 and O2 levels) within the chamber. These controlled environment chambers are not inexpensive so are useful for scientific experiments but not considered practical for commercial production. A more low-tech option for a controlled environment chamber would be something similar to a growroom, where depending upon the budget, can vary in amount of environmental control. An important factor in the design of controlled environment chambers is the requirement for a fresh air supply if no additional CO2 is supplemented to compensate for the CO2 up take from photosynthesis of the plants growing in the chamber. With a larger controlled environment chamber, the HVAC requirements of that system goes up. Where a small chamber may be able to be supported by the HVAC of the building it is housed in, a large controlled environment chamber, housing numerous plants, may require its own HVAC system. This additional ventilation requirements of a larger chamber would come at an additional cost.

Additional control of the plant root-zone, can be achieved through the use of hydroponic cultivation techniques, and some commercially produced controlled environmental chambers implement hydroponic plant production in their design. With the use of hydroponics in the controlled environment chamber, additional control of plant growing conditions is allowed. Hydroponics allows for control of root-zone water, nutrient and dissolved oxygen conditions. Environmental chambers follow a similar ideology and is a broader form of controlled environment chambers, with broader applications than purely plant research. NASA applies environmental chambers for various testing of vacuum, thermal, thermal vacuums, cryogenics, and high-pressure oxygen systems, but environmental chambers are also applied throughout various other industries as well where high environmental control is necessary. The energy consumed by a controlled environment chamber will be much higher than typical plant production due to all of the required environmental controls, which is why they are typically used for scientific and research purposes to determine optimal grow conditions for the plants. Once these conditions are known, with careful design, a more economically viable controlled environment agriculture greenhouse may be used for production if it can be done cheap enough.