GreenAir: An IoT Field Testing System for Bio-Air Filtration

Many studies show prolonged contact with Toxic Volatile Organic Compounds (TVOC) affects humans with long-term health problems. There is a wealth of research on bioair filtration processes which showcase plants as an effective medium to remove TVOCs. To date, most studies on bio-air filtration have been conducted in sealed chambers, this raises the question of their efficacy in a real-world application. Bio-air filtration field studies are difficult due to extraneous confounding variables and challenges in collecting accurate data. Our study proposes an Internet of Things bio-air filtration system, designed explicitly to facilitate field testing of bio-air filtration effectiveness of reducing TVOCs, in a real-world setting. The unique design of the system integrates two modules that measure ambient air and filtered air concurrently. An experiment was carried out over 21 days. The GreenAir system was deployed in a small one-person office in Dubai, UAE. The results showed that the prototype was effective at recording and analyzing data and produced a significant difference in the amount of TVOCs in an office environment. This strongly demonstrates the system’s ability to record and analyze data in a field study, and this supports the technical approach for pushing forward the research in this area to determine if using plants to filter air is a viable solution.