A review of green systems within the indoor environment

Abstract

This paper reviews the state of art of vegetation systems and their effect on the indoor environmental quality (IEQ), based on scientific studies from the past 30 years. Some studies have shown that biophilic workspaces and interaction with plants may change human attitudes, behaviours, improve productivity and the overall well-being. Evapotranspiration from plants helps lowering the temperature around the planting environment and this can be utilised for air cooling and humidity control. Also, indoor greenery can be used to reduce sound levels as a passive acoustic insulation system. Living wall systems in combination with biofiltration are emerging technologies to provide beneficial effects on improvement of indoor comfort. Several studies have indicated that green systems may improve indoor air quality and that they have different pathways for pollutant removal of volatile organic compounds. The plant root zone in potted plants may be an effective area for removing volatile organic compounds under controlled conditions. In conclusion, the full capacity of plants in real-life settings will need to be clarified to establish the true pollutant-removal mechanisms and the general effect on IEQ. The effects of green systems in combination with mechanical elements such as conventional heating, ventilation and air conditioning would need to be studied.

Higher Attention Capacity After Improving Indoor Air Quality by Indoor Plant Placement in Elementary School Classrooms

“…In previous reports, occupying a natural environment enabled people to increase their attention capacity (Adachi et al, 2000;Dijkstra et al, 2008;Felsten, 2009;Kaplan, 1995;Tennessen and Cimprich, 1995;Wells, 2000). Furthermore, green areas with plants in indoor spaces could alter the attitude and behavior of indoor occupants (Moya et al, 2018) and improve their perception (Mangone and van der Linden, 2014;Qin et al, 2014). A similar result was also found in an earlier report of Lohr et al (1996) in which the placement of indoor plants in a computer lab at a university improved the attention capacity of students.…”

“…The placement of indoor plants facilitated the tendency to decrease contaminants and reversed the increasing trend to a decreasing one. Previous researchers defined this phenomenon as phytoremediation, by which plants remove contaminants from the air, water and soil (Moya et al, 2018). This phenomenon has been consistently reported by many researchers in various studies (Kim et al, 2009(Kim et al, , 2010Lim et al, 2009;Orwell et al, 2006;Wood et al, 2002).…”

“…The indoor level of relative humidity decreased (48%) and the air temperature (26.3°C) and CO 2 concentration (1125 mg•m −3 ) were constant in the classrooms with indoor plants. Previous researchers have reported that indoor plant placement can regulate air temperature and relative humidity in indoor spaces through evapotranspiration (Davis and Hirmer, 2015;Mangone and van der Linden, 2014;Moya et al, 2018;Qin et al, 2014). Other previous studies pointed out that a classroom is a unique space because of its overpopulation of students (Becker et al, 2007) and the increased indoor level of CO 2 mainly by the metabolic processes of indoor occupants (Cetin and Sevik, 2016).…”

Actions for adaptation and mitigation to climate change: Madrid case study

“…• Increase in the use of façades and plant covers to mitigate the effect of urban heat island, through the management of shade and the effect of evapotranspiration of plants and substrate [24,[31][32][33][34][35][36][37].…”

Performance Analysis of Indoor Smart Environmental Control Factors: Using Temperature to Control the Rate of Formaldehyde Emission

“…Photocatalytic paint can purify indoor air [15], or air purifiers with filtering materials such as photoplasma, activated charcoal, ozone, or negative ions are also commonly used. A contaminant-processing system can be established through heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning [16]. This experiment adopted F3 and F1 classes of wood plates common in Taiwan as experimental material for comparisons.…”