Use of green facades in sustainable building nvironments: quantifying the uptakerates of air pollutants by facades draped with tropical creepers

Abstract

Green facades are an attractive option for sustainable built environments. Their use is well documented for much of the developed world. It is an irony that although tropical creepers are ever green, quick growing and lush, their use as facades in developing nations is limited. In this study, we present results from two facades. The first a controlled façade draped with Passion flower creepers is exposed to clean unpolluted air within the School of Mechanical and Building sciences, VIT University . The second identical façade, also draped with the same creeper, is exposed to varying levels of SOx, NOx and Suspended Particulate Matter at a busy traffic junction on Katpadi road Vellore , In Tamilnadu, India . Sensitivity studies shall be presented based on the deposition pattern of pollutants on these two facades. Scanning Electron Micrographs will elucidate the mechanistic details of the deposition patterns of suspended particulate matter, whilst liquid extraction methods coupled with Spectrophotometric analyses will reveal the concentrations of sulphates and nitrates assimilated by the stoma and the mesophilic tissues from street pollution. Finally, results from a computational model will be presented enabling one to calculate the deposition velocities of SOx and NOx on to the facades.