Current State of Indoor Air Phytoremediation Using Potted Plants and Green Walls

Abstract

Urban civilization has a high impact on the environment and human health. The pollution level of indoor air can be 2–5 times higher than the outdoor air pollution, and sometimes it reaches up to 100 times or more in natural/mechanical ventilated buildings. Even though people spend about 90% of their time indoors, the importance of indoor air quality is less noticed. Indoor air pollution can be treated with techniques such as chemical purification, ventilation, isolation, and removing pollutions by plants (phytoremediation). Among these techniques, phytoremediation is not given proper attention and, therefore, is the focus of our review paper. Phytoremediation is an affordable and more environmentally friendly means to purify polluted indoor air. Furthermore, studies show that indoor plants can be used to regulate building temperature, decrease noise levels, and alleviate social stress. Sources of indoor air pollutants and their impact on human health are briefly discussed in this paper. The available literature on phytoremediation, including experimental works for removing volatile organic compound (VOC) and particulate matter from the indoor air and associated challenges and opportunities, are reviewed. Phytoremediation of indoor air depends on the physical properties of plants such as interfacial areas, the moisture content, and the type (hydrophobicity) as well as pollutant characteristics such as the size of particulate matter (PM). A comprehensive summary of plant species that can remove pollutants such as VOCs and PM is provided. Sources of indoor air pollutants, as well as their impact on human health, are described. Phytoremediation and its mechanism of cleaning indoor air are discussed. The potential role of green walls and potted-plants for improving indoor air quality is examined. A list of plant species suitable for indoor air phytoremediation is proposed. This review will help in making informed decisions about integrating plants into the interior building design.

Removal of Volatile Organic Compounds by Means of a Felt-Based Living Wall Using Different Plant Species

“…For n-hexane, P. hederaceum reduced the concentration of TVOCs faster during the first 5 h, though after that the rate of reduction decreased and this species did not achieve the total removal of the contaminant at 72 h. For formaldehyde, P. hederaceum had similar behaviour to the other species (except S. wallisii), nearly eliminating the contaminant after one hour. Both C. comosum and P. hederaceum were catalogued among the species with a higher potential for removing formaldehyde after a review of several studies [37].…”

Impact of Air-Purifying Plants on the Reduction of Volatile Organic Compounds in the Indoor Hot Desert Climate

“…Combined with the detection power of mass spectrometry (MS), gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) (Figure 1) can be used to separate complex mixtures, quantify analytes, identify unknown peaks, and determine trace levels of contamination. Based on GC-MS measurements, the air quality in the spacecraft raised the serious concern since more than 300 types of VOCs were detected from the indoor air of the spacecraft with the presence of the crew (Bandehali et al, 2021).…”

A systematic review on mitigation of common indoor air pollutants using plant-based methods: a phytoremediation approach

“…Formaldehyde and BTX are the main indoor VOCs contributing to the so-called "sick building syndrome" (Wieslander et al 1996;Orwell et al 2006;Soreanu et al 2013). This compound enters the body through the skin, respiratory system, and gastrointestinal tract, causing headaches, asthma, respiratory symptoms, and decreased lung function, as well as effects on the nervous system, nasopharyngeal cancer, and myeloid leukemia (Mandin et al 2020;Bandehali et al 2021).…”