The transformation of existing green wall technology to provide urban heat rejection infrastructure

1438564（Felson）。绿色墙提供了促进新行业发展的益处，因为它们可以被动地调节外墙表面温度，从而减少建筑物的加热和冷却负荷，减弱表面温度变化和使外墙饰面退化的太阳照射，并提供生态系统服务益处，包括空气污染和颗粒去除，减轻城市热岛效应和城市野生动物栖息地。 到目前为止，这些好处并不能抵消绿色墙的成本，因此，绿色墙的市场仍然有限。 这项研究将解决必须解决的问题，以将现有的绿色墙技术转变为用于过程排热的主动技术（即，主要用于冷冻水的产生），从而将市场扩展到从家庭到机构和工业的广泛应用。 目的是提供湿式冷却塔技术的可持续替代方案，其保持现有绿色壁的益处，采用它们的构造和操作方法，同时避免湿式冷却塔技术的缺点（即，冷却水的一次性使用和污染）。研究人员的目标是创建一个绿色墙散热技术与综合水生物过滤能力和数学传输模型，以模拟热和生物过滤性能的技术，用于实验和设计目的。 这些“thermoGreenWallTM”（tGW）系统的性能将通过协调的实验和建模方法进行研究，使用实验室规模的tGW面板和全尺寸原型和由PI开发的串联模型。 实验室规模的tGW面板将被构建为围隔实验，以系统地研究植物/基质相容性/生产力（例如，使用根面积计和用于根生物量测定的破坏性取样），植物健康（例如，使用叶绿素荧光），水生物过滤方法，性能，和与植物/基质系统的相互作用，以及排热传输机制和性能。

1438564 (Felson). Green walls provide benefits that have fostered the growth of a new industry as they can passively moderate exterior wall surface temperatures and thereby reduce building heating and cooling loads, attenuate surface temperature variations and solar exposure that degrade exterior wall finishes, and provide ecosystem service benefits including air pollution and particulate removal, mitigation of urban heat island effects, and urban wildlife habitats. To date, these benefits do not offset the costs of green walls, and therefore, the market for green walls remains limited. This research will address problems that must be resolved to transform existing green wall technology into an active technology for process heat rejection (i.e., principally, here, for chilled water generation), and thereby expand the market to a wide range of applications from households to institutions and industry. The objective is to provide a sustainable alternative to wet cooling tower technology that maintains the benefits of existing green walls, employing their methods of construction and operation, while avoiding the shortcomings of wet cooling tower technologies (i.e., single use and contamination of cooling water). The investigators are targeting the creation of a green wall heat rejection technology with integrated water biofiltration capabilities and a mathematical transport model to simulate the thermal and biofiltration performance of the technology for experimental and design purposes. The performance of these "thermoGreenWallTM" (tGW) systems will be investigated through coordinated experimental and modeling methods using lab-scale tGW panels and full-scale prototypes and a tanks-in-series model developed by the PIs. The lab-scale tGW panels will be constructed as mesocosm experiments to systematically investigate plant/substrate compatibility/productivity (e.g., using a root area meter and destructive sampling for root biomass determination), plant health (e.g., using chlorophyll fluorescence), water biofiltration methods, performance, and interaction with plant/substrate systems, and heat rejection transport mechanisms and performance.