Entrepreneur ‘invents’ Suntube
Gurvinder Singh
Tribune News Service
Ludhiana, April 14
City-based entrepreneur has made an invention that may revolutionise the growth of plants and trees even under shade and help bring a large area of earth, which lies barren and infertile due to shade, under the green cover.
It all started when Sukhbir Singh Sokhi, a city-based entrepreneur, who otherwise runs a sewing machine manufacturing unit, refused to believe that fruit-bearing trees could not grow in his kitchen garden due to shade. He immediately started devising ways to make sun shine on plants in his garden, which eventually led to an invention of a unique system that can enable plants to grow even in shade.
Sokhi’s experiment led to an ingenious invention.
He came up with this idea around six years ago. With his constant efforts to develop prototypes and production for the next couple of years, he was successfully able to create the device he calls ‘Suntube’. It lets sunlight fall on a large area, which reflects in shade, allowing trees and plants to grow as they would do in ample sunlight.
Sukhbir studied mechanical engineering and used his skills to make the device. He used an aluminium sheet which reflects 99.8 per cent light and after fitting prisms, through the law of reflection, his vertical device allows 98 per cent of the sunlight to reflect in the shade. “The device with around 2-ft diametre lets sunshine fall in an area of around 25 ft,” says Sokhi, adding: “It is 25 ft high, but the height can be adjusted for getting more light. But by increasing the height, the amount of reflected light will also become less.”
He has been constantly improving the product. Initially, plant leaves would turn black or slightly burn due to intense heat. “Through a series of reflections, the light used to get intense, which lead to burning of plants.
To overcome this, I devised another way. I added a rotator which rotates the tube with one rotation per hour, so that light returns to plants after a minute. The light is nothing but electromagnetic wavelength in the rage of 300 nm to 700 nm, which is achieved through this system that allows photosynthesis to take place and plants to grow,” he said.
Defying challenges all the way
“The aluminum sheet I have been using was not available in India. So I had to import it from Germany and it is pretty expensive as well. So, I am now using a cheaper one from China, which is less reflective. I have also initiated the process for developing the sheet here,” he says.
He said he had filed a patent for the technology which has been published. He also filed an international patent under Patent Cooperation Treaty. He has even founded a company for this business named ‘Second-Sun Systems.’ “With fertile land becoming increasingly scarce with more buildings being erected everywhere, it is becoming critical that all fertile land be put to use for growing crops and trees. This technology can be important to achieve this,” he said.
An avid supporter of planting fruit trees, that got him to create this technology, he says: “Instead of eucalyptus, fruit trees need to be grown along rivers. In fact, all villages can be given a contract for this and it will generate employment and meet food security needs as well,” he said.
