4. Plants Objective and Impact
4.1. Air Cleaning Characters The National Aeronautics and Space Administration( NASA) believe that plants could spur the indoor air. This organization had discovered that house ferns may lower the Volatile Organic Compounds( VOCs) level inside a space effectively, while the Clean Air Council( CAC) and Wolverton Environmental Services( WES) run an experiment and examine those elements, which can prove that they eliminate toxics( NASA, 2011).
Mechanism This creature can utilize a portion of harmful partials in the medium( Kobayashi et al 2009). As shown in Figure 1, the previous process outcome is the plant energy source, while particles are determent by biological operation, to feed the plant some hydrous settlement will happen, and the plant root as well plays a role in transaction, which will produce clear air.
Figure 1: VOCs treatments in the plant
Photosynthesis is the main transformation method in the plant nurturing, while the leaves absorb the CO2 gases, the oxygen is released as a by-product during nighttime. Although all the capabilities of the plant, it may have some limitations( Kobayashi et al. 2009), such as that the plant cannot be fully relied upon cleaning the air totally, whereas some ventilation and filters are needed to proceed towards the desired level, and using such solutions may lead to a rise in the humidity levels, which may be considered as both positive and negative according to the situation.
NASA’ s Experiment The existence of human beings relies on their complex relationship with the planet they live in, and particularly, with the regenerative qualities of the earth’ s ecosystem. In 1973, during the observation of the air quality in the sky labs, NASA experts found that it contains about 107 VOCs due to the usage of artificial substances in building these units, when the gasses are cornered in a closed spot without refreshing the air, they cause sickness for the dwellers due to the unhealthy environment and the lack of the earth’ s supportive ecosystem( NASA 2011). Furthermore, the need to achieve high competence and better work efficiency, demands the tightness of the facility and this can lead to a short air circulation, which can increase the negative effect on the building users. Therefore, Wolverton introduced the use of plants as a natural life support system to enhance personal environment and to eliminate gasses while using the same materials and maintaining the energy efficiency( NASA 2011). BioHome was a test conducted by NASA, which demonstrated the state of“ controlled( or closed) ecological life support system( CELSS)”, where the design was well sealed using the same materials but the addition of
Indoor plants impact on indoor environmental quality 833