Living ‘BioWall’ of Plants Could Clean Household Air, Lower Energy Bills
Originally Published on LaboratoryEquipment.com
Homes of the future could have cleaner air and lower energy bills due to a Purdue team’s BioWall innovation involving the use of a living wall of air-cleaning plants.
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The BioWall is an air filter consisting of shelves of plants built into a wall and attached to a home’s HVAC system. Built-in systems provide light and water. A fan behind the unit draws air into the BioWall and through the growth media where microbes in the plants’ roots process volatile organic compounds, or VOCs. The plants also remove carbon dioxide from the air. The cleaned air then returns to the home’s HVAC unit for heating or cooling.
The current prototype has been in place at the ReNEWW House since 2016. A joint venture between Purdue and Whirlpool Corp., the ReNEWW House - a retrofitted, net-zero energy, water and waste house - is a 1920s era home near the Purdue campus for graduate students to monitor a host of incorporated novel energy-saving technologies.
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