Introduction
The air quality of the most of countries across the globe is worsening due to fossils fuel combustion by transport vehicles, industries, power plants, cement factories, etc. This leads to serious issues for both flora (plants) and fauna (animals) present on the earth.
Environmental Threats:
Moreover, air pollutants also cause several environmental threats, like acid rain, global warming and ozone layer disturbances as well as the production of ozone on the troposphere which adversely affects the health of the organisms. In the line of this, the rise of population causes the land shrinkage i.e. scarcity of space in the city area which reduces the availability of the land to grow plants.
Lack of New Plants
Despite the identification of numerous plants which show higher air pollution tolerance index (APTI; A parameter which represent air pollution scavenging capacity of the plants). We are unable to grow these plants in the crowded areas of cities due to lack of open land for plantation of trees. Thus, an alternative natural solution of the tree is immensely required without ignoring importance of forest and trees in the land ecosystem.
Algae as Sustitute:
Algae are photosynthetic organisms and they show luxurious growth in the polluted environment without any constraints. The CO2 utilization capacity of the algae makes them most attractive, cost effective and easily accessible, and an alternative biological ecological tool of the air pollution mitigation.
This unique concept was used for the first time in the world by Serbian scientists with the aim viz., this algal assisted technology will replace, as aa alternative and short space problem for plantation having air pollution scavenging ability. This technology is an especially deigned photo- bioreactor that contains a glass container with volume capacity of 600 litters filled with water and micro algae. This container based technology is popularly known as “liquid tree”.
The Bioreactor Process
The bioreactor can assimilate the amount of CO2 the volume of which is equal to two, 10 years old plants uptake in a year. This technology is basically based on carbon sequestration mechanism which reduces level of CO2 and releases Oxygen into the atmosphere. Furthermore, this technology seems to uptake other harmful gases.
Advantages of This Technology
The major advantages of this technology are the liquid tree can uptake CO2 more efficiently and require less care as compared to plants, as well as require less space to install than the land required for plants growth. Unlike the plants the growth of microalgae is not affected by the air pollutants.
Liquid Tree Technology
Thus, without any doubt the liquid tree technology could be used as natural air purifier or air pollution mitigation in highly polluted and crowded zone in the cities as an alternative of land plants. Now a day Serbia has installed this algal container based technology on the roadside to improve the air quality of the polluted areas of the cities.
The active installation of this technology is also required in crowded countries like India where land area is shrinking due to population explosion. Moreover, microalgae used in development of liquid tree technology also provide several beneficial compounds which are used in various industries i.e. in pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, cosmetic, production of biofertilizers, etc.
Conclusion
However, we can’t totally depend on the algal assisted technology by ignoring plantation of trees. Thus, in the future more research and innovation is required in this direction for sustainability of life on the Earth which does not promote deforestation and reduces plantation of tree on the Earth.
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Dr Raghvendra Dubey,
Assistant Professor ,
School of Life and Basic Sciences,
Jaipur National University, Jaipur, India