It's called 'CityTree' and it's the innovative mobile plant infrastructure that improves air quality in the city, thanks to its ability to significantly reduce fine dust concentrations.
Designed as a green urban furniture solution for streets and squares but also for schools, shopping centers, businesses and airports, the technological device was tested as part of the European project 'CityTree Scaler', which saw the participation of ENEA, CNR - Institute of Atmospheric and Climate Sciences (ISAC) and Consorzio Proambiente, in collaboration with the German start-up Green City Solutions that produced the panel. The results have been published in the open source online journal Atmosphere.
CityTree can act as a real vegetable filter with a potential effect equal to 275 trees in the city: it consists of a self-supporting panel 3 meters long, 4 meters high and 60 centimeters deep covered with a variety of moss [1] capable of absorbing up to 240 tons of CO2 per year. This is an urban furniture solution designed for those neighborhoods or hot-spot areas without parks, gardens and vegetated areas where air pollution
is particularly high.
“Its effectiveness is located in the area near the panel, which corresponds to an area about 200 square meters large,” underlines Felicita Russo, ENEA researcher at the Air Pollution Laboratory. CityTree uses a fully automated irrigation system, equipped with a system for collecting rainwater and temperature and humidity detectors that guarantee maximum crop efficiency and lower water consumption
.
To evaluate the effectiveness of this infrastructure, researchers from the CNR and the Proambiente Consortium conducted measurement campaigns [2] in three different weather conditions in Modena, which is located in one of the most polluted areas in Italy
, the Po Valley.
“Starting from these results, we reproduced, with modeling tools [3] and thanks to the ENEA CRESCO6 supercomputer, the concentrations of pollutants observed in the field and studied the actual reductions in PM10 and nitrogen oxides (NOx) obtained thanks to CityTree, together with the extension of the area affected by the abatement. In the filtering mode, the device guarantees a reduction of up to 15% of PM10”, underlines Maria Gabriella Villani, ENEA researcher
at the Atmospheric Pollution Laboratory.
But the results were very encouraging for other types of particulate matter such as PM2.5 (up to -20%), PM1 (up to -13%), ultra-fine particles (-38%) and black carbon [4] (-17%), always in the
area surrounding the filter panel.
Currently, this green solution has found some diffusion in cities such as London and Berlin, where it has been installed both in indoor environments (airports, shopping centers and in industrial production warehouses) and outside as well as at the entrance of schools, in city centers and in the squares at the headquarters of important companies. In these contexts, the purpose of the installations is to obtain areas of 'fresh and clean air', also providing a place for a break, a meeting and information point, internet access and an electric charging station
.
“But you can also think of installing CityTrees instead of normal canopies at bus stops or in urban canyons, places where city streets are lined with buildings on both sides that create poorly ventilated and, consequently, very polluted environments. A very localized reduction in the concentration of pollutants during peak hours could be interesting to limit the population's exposure to smog,” Villani
points out.
“Technologies like CityTree represent innovative solutions that are constantly evolving and working on this area is one of the major interests of our laboratory. Certainly they cannot solve the problem of air pollution in the city alone, but they still represent smart solutions to improve not only air quality but, more generally, the quality of life, protecting biodiversity, reducing the effects of heat islands and redeveloping the urban fabric with new meeting places”, concludes Russo
.
Source: Enea press office
[1] The
Lucobryum Glaucum 'Polstermoos' species is placed on the outer surface of the panel for its robustness and ability to withstand sunlight, while the
Amblysazum varium (Plattenmoos) is placed on the inner side because it thrives with reduced direct sunlight.
[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1352231021000078
[3] Arianet-Suez's PMSS (
Parallel Micro-SWIFT-Micro SPRAY) modeling system works with a spatial detail in the order of meters to simulate, at the microscale level, the transport and dispersion of pollutants in the atmosphere.
[4] Black carbon (BC) is defined as the set of carbonaceous particles capable of absorbing light with a characteristic wavelength in the visible spectrum (380÷760 nm). This is a primary pollutant emitted during the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels and biomass and can be emitted from natural and anthropogenic sources in the form of soot (Arpa Lombardia https://www.arpalombardia.it/Pages/Aria/Inquinanti/Carbonio.aspx?firstlevel=Inquinanti)
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