WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – A Purdue University
student team has won a national contest for designing a “Biowall” of
living plants integrated into a building’s heating and ventilation
system.
The system could improve indoor air quality and reduce energy use by decreasing the need for outdoor ventilation air.
The team last October was selected by the
Environmental Protection Agency for a People, Prosperity and the Planet
(P3) grant. Now the students have received an award to continue a second
phase of the project and will be recommended for an additional grant of
up to $90,000. The students presented their design in April during the
National Sustainable Design Expo in Washington, D.C.
“Implications of the research are profound,
considering the fact that the average American spends more than 90
percent of their time indoors where the air is two to five times more
polluted than outdoors,” said Daniel Newkirk, graduate student lead on
the project.
Indoor air is tainted with compounds from an
array of household products as well as carbon dioxide from human
respiration. Costs related to poor indoor air quality are at least $40
billion annually due to illness and lost productivity in the United
States.
The Purdue team was one of seven winners out of
40 teams in the contest. The team also won an award by the American
Institute of Chemical Engineers/Youth Council on Sustainable Science and
Technology, recognizing the design team’s interdisciplinary approach.
More information about the Biowall and other EPA P3 projects is
available at http://www.epa.gov/ncer/p3/project_websites/2014/2014awardwinners.html
The program, a competition for designing
sustainable technologies, has two phases. For the first phase, teams
were awarded a $15,000 grant to develop concepts. Winners receive
additional funding for the second phase, aimed at taking designs to
real-world applications.
The team members are Newkirk, a graduate student
in Purdue’s Ecological Sciences and Engineering Program; and
undergraduates Michelle Bouley, interior design; Adam Drummond,
mechanical engineering technology; Linhan Huang, economics; Caroline
Kelemen, agricultural and biological engineering; Andrew Martin,
architectural engineering; Olivia Nola, architectural engineering; Yu
Xue, biochemistry; and Moriah Yearwood, horticulture.
Their faculty advisers are William J. Hutzel, a professor of mechanical engineering technology; Michael N. Dana, a professor of horticulture and landscape architecture; and Ming Qu, an assistant professor of architectural engineering.
Writer: Emil Venere, 765-494-4709, venere@purdue.edu
Sources: William Hutzel, 765-494-7528, hutzelw@purdue.edu
Daniel W Newkirk, dnewkirk@purdue.edu
Note to Journalists: An EPA media contact is Ryann Williams, 703-347-8115, Williams.Ryann@epa.gov
External Link: http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2014/Q2/purdue-students-win-top-research-award-for-biowall-concept.html