
‘BioSolar Leaf’ to Tackle Air Pollution in White City - Osiris30
https://news.algaeworld.org/2019/04/worlds-first-biosolar-leaf-to-tackle-air-pollution-in-white-city/
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KaiserPro
Its cheaper, prettier and more effective to plant trees, climbers and hardy
shrubs.

I get that algae is all fun and that, but it needs a boat water, glass,
filtering and pumping. The other part is its a massive monoculture. which
means that its very prone to fungal and other algae types.

The hard part through all of this is not getting the plant to grow, thats
simple. Its keeping it watered and maintained.

To keep pollution down in london, growing a wide variety of trees is _an_
answer. But they require maintenance.

If you could create self contained boxes for something like dwarf cheery
trees, which can be connected to the grey water system by capillary, it would
have a far bigger impact on pm2.5, temperature and no2.

having vast vats of water on roofs, with pumping filtering and airating
systems isn't co2 efficient. I suspect the amount of c02 sequestered is
significantly less than the glass/running energy requirements.

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fit2rule
I'm with you. We need to make planting trees and growing local gardens cool
again.

One thing that is kind of popular here in Vienna are window gardens .. there's
a high jankiness factor, but it always feels very rewarding to visit someone
who has put the effort into tending their window gardens a little ..

[https://www.pinterest.com/pin/206673070369456616/](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/206673070369456616/)

It cools down the apartment and in many cases provides fresh herbs, which - in
a concrete jungle like Vienna - is a welcome reward. Plus, at least in the
ones I've visited, it smells so good. I wonder what can be done to push window
gardens a little higher up the mainstream acceptance scale?

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amatecha
I was looking for the source of that image and came across what appears to be
the source video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkCuPrsPn_I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkCuPrsPn_I)

Edit: I previously linked to their website (it's linked in the video) but it
seems to have been hacked, or somehow containing some unrelated/unexpected
content.

~~~
StavrosK
That website looked very interesting, and then I kept reading...

> Window farms are a great item to show off to casual dates you meet from
> websites such as Meet N Fuck.

What the meet?

~~~
drewm1980
There are other links to porn sprinkled in there. It this an elaborate art
hoax site or something?

~~~
StavrosK
Looks like blogspam.

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thinkpad20
This project is very interesting and I think it’s great that this is being
studied, but we already have a technology for reducing greenhouse gasses in
trees and other plants. They do not have expensive and pollution-causing
manufacturing processes, contribute to biodiversity and natural ecosystems and
don’t produce lasting waste. Perhaps I’m being cynical, but it seems like the
ultimate driver of this technology is still profit. There’s a lot of
trademarks and business speak in this article.

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burlesona
Looks very cool, but I was disappointed not to see any numbers. Has anyone
heard what this kind of thing costs, and how much CO2 it removes?

~~~
ozaark
For CO2 removal the article says they "can remove carbon dioxide and produce
breathable oxygen at a rate equivalent to a hundred trees from the surface
area of just a single tree".

Trees sequester ~48 lbs of CO2 per year.[1][2] So 48*100 = ~4800lbs CO2
removed per year for this project. As others have said I'm interested to see
if they can do it cost effectively.

[1]
[https://projects.ncsu.edu/project/treesofstrength/treefact.h...](https://projects.ncsu.edu/project/treesofstrength/treefact.htm)
[2]
[http://urbanforestrynetwork.org/benefits/air%20quality.htm](http://urbanforestrynetwork.org/benefits/air%20quality.htm)

~~~
gpm
Humans exhale something around 2.3 pounds of CO2 per day [0], 2.3 * 365 =
839.5 pounds per year, 4800 / 839.5 = 5.7 people per "surface area of a tree".
That might be small enough that this can keep the CO2 level constant in a
office...

The average american carbon footprint is 19.8 tonnes per year [1], 19.8 tonnes
/ 4800 (pounds / "sa tree") = 9.082 surfaces areas of a tree per person to
eliminate their carbon footprint. That's a lot better than I expected
really... somewhat doubt my numbers.

(All number here have _huge_ standard deviations, decimal points on the
approximation should not be read as indicators of variance).

[0] [https://www.reference.com/science/much-co2-human-
exhale-3f8c...](https://www.reference.com/science/much-co2-human-
exhale-3f8cfdd9076c129)

[1]
[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/datablog/2009/sep/02...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/datablog/2009/sep/02/carbon-
emissions-per-person-capita)

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aaron695
It's all PR fluff, so it's hard to know what they want to do. Perhaps just get
investment $ for the CEO.

But, cleaning air (CO2, pm 2.5, volatile particles) indoors at home is
probably very important and should be done more.

Well chosen indoor plants will do it, but this could compete. If it's edible
it might make people more likely to do it.

Not sure how the masses will react to removing particles that kill, then
eating them though.

