Investigating the Impact of Plants on Indoor Air Quality: a Multi-scale Cross-disciplinary Approach

2012年，全球约有430万人因室内空气污染而过早死亡。在英国，居民倾向于在室内度过高达90%的时间，室内空气质量差会导致病态建筑综合症的流行。植物提供了容易获得，低成本和多功能的选择，以大大改善室内空气质量。这个跨学科的项目旨在研究不同生长介质中的一系列植物物种的潜力，通过去除室内存在的有害气体和颗粒物来提供关键的空气质量服务。我们的方法汇集了大气化学和物理学、园艺和植物生理学以及建筑通风方面的专业知识。该奖学金将解决选择最合适的植物物种/品种，生长介质和环境条件的复杂问题，在单个植物和建筑规模上采用（i）容纳单个植物的小型环境室和（ii）代表室内工作环境的大型环境室。在这两个尺度上，我们将测量和控制关键的空气质量参数，如二氧化碳、半挥发性有机化合物（SVOCs）和气溶胶的浓度。我们将同时仔细测试植物的环境（重点是光照强度，基质含水量和CO2浓度）对植物隔离污染物能力的影响。我们亦会测试不同的植物生长基质，包括标准生长基质及水培对工厂空气质素服务的影响。最后，小规模研究的结果将用于建筑规模的研究，以研究植物如何改善健康和工作效率。据我们所知，这是第一个将严格控制植物条件与其室内空气质量性能联系起来的多规模研究。此外，虽然已经有一些关于盆栽植物吸收挥发性有机化合物（VOC）的研究，但SVOC显然研究不足，同时特别重要，因为它们可以直接与室内环境中存在的颗粒相互作用，因为它们的挥发性低。

Approximately 4.3 million people worldwide died prematurely due to indoor air pollution in 2012. In Britain, residents tend to spend as much as 90% of their time indoors, where poor indoor air quality can result in the prevalence of Sick Building Syndrome. Plants offer easy-access, low-cost and versatile options to substantially improve indoor air quality. This cross-disciplinary project aims to scrutinise the potential of a range of plant species in different growth media to provide key air quality services by removing harmful gases and particles present indoors. Our approach brings together expertise in atmospheric chemistry and physics, horticulture and plant physiology and building ventilation. The studentship will address the complex issue of selecting the most suited plant species/cultivars, growing media and environmental conditions on both individual plant and building scales employing (i) a small environmental chamber accommodating a single plant and (ii) a large environmental chamber representing an indoor working environment. On both scales, we will measure and control key air quality parameters such as the concentrations of CO2 , semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs) and aerosols. We will simultaneously carefully test the impact of the plant's environment (focusing on light intensity, substrate water content and CO2 concentration) on the plant's ability to sequester pollutants. We will also test the impact of different plant growth substrates including standard growing media and hydroculture on the plant's air quality services. Finally, the results from the small-scale study will be fed into the building-scale research to investigate how the plants will improve the well-being and working productivity.This is -to our knowledge- the first multi-scale study linking rigorous control of plant conditions to their indoor air quality performance. Additionally, while there have been a number of studies on uptake of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) of potted plants, SVOCs are clearly under-researched while being especially important since they can interact directly with particles present in the indoor environment due to their low volatilities.