Abstract
Formaldehyde is a hazardous volatile organic compound (VOC) listed as a Group 1 carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. The active green wall system is a promising technology that utilizes active airflow passing through plants grown along a vertical alignment to increase their mass exposure to pollutants. However, few studies have investigated the effect of airflow rate on their efficacy for formaldehyde removal, and plant-mediated effects are unknown. This study assessed the formaldehyde removal ability of the active green wall using dynamic experiments. Three levels of airflow rate (30, 50, and 65 m3·h−1) and inlet formaldehyde concentration (1.0, 2.0, and 3.5 mg·m−3) were used and three plant species were investigated. The removal of formaldehyde by active green walls was significantly (P < 0.01) affected by the airflow rate, formaldehyde concentration, and plant species. The single pass removal efficiency varying from 38.18 to 94.42% decreased as the airflow rate and formaldehyde concentration increased. The elimination capacity varied from 189 to 1154 mg·m−2·h−1 and increased with the inlet formaldehyde loading rate. Significant differences in formaldehyde removal effectiveness among the plant species were observed with Chlorophytum comosum performing the best, followed by Schefflera octophylla, with Chamaedorea elegans being the worst.
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Data availability
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Funding
This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [2682020ZT99], the Chengdu Science and Technology Project [2019-YF05-02268-SN] and the Sichuan Province Social Science Planning Project [SC21B143].
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DW contributed to investigation, methodology, data curation, and writing—original draft; LY contributed to conceptualization, supervision, and project administration.
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Wu, D., Yu, L. Effects of airflow rate and plant species on formaldehyde removal by active green walls. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 88812–88822 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-21995-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-21995-0