Cylindrical, open-top chamber for the exposure of plants to air pollutants in the field

Journal Article · · J. Environ. Qual.; (United States)

OSTI ID:6503174

Mandl, R H; Weinstein, L H; McCune, D C; Keveny, M

Much of the information on the effects of air pollutants on plant life has been derived from studies with controlled-environment, greenhouse, and field fumigation equipment. Each of these is important for the gaining of conditional information on the response of plants to air pollutants, but none of them can simulate ambient environmental conditions. Portable and fixed field fumigation chambers have perhaps come the closest to providing the ambient milieu, but the usual closed design alters normal conditions of light intensity and quality, temperature and humidity fluctuations, precipitation, and free access of insects and plant pathogens. A simple, relatively inexpensive, and light-weight open-top chamber of modular design has been built and tested. Each module is 1.22 m (4 feet) high and 2.74 m (9 feet) in diameter, and can be stacked vertically in combinations of 1, 2, or 3 modules. The modules are fabricated from corrugated fiberglass panels attached to aluminum hoops and the air-delivery plenum from lay-flat polyethylene tubing. A mobile air filter and blower assembly provides air that has passed through a dust filter and an activated-charcoal filter. An open plastic mesh placed across the top of the chamber reduced the influence of wind on the air distribution system, but it does not impede the entrance of precipitation or of insects. The chamber was tested in several ways: efficiency of the chamber and filter-blower assembly for exclusion of ambient oxidants was tested by monitoring the atmosphere and by growing susceptible plants in chambers with or without charcoal filters and in outside plots; distribution and concentration of an introduced pollutant within the chamber were measured by a dynamic air, monitoring method; and accumulation of an introduced pollutant was studied with both plants and a static monitoring method.

• Research Organization: Boyce Thompson Inst. for Plant Research, Yonkers, NY
• OSTI ID: 6503174
• Journal Information: J. Environ. Qual.; (United States), Journal Name: J. Environ. Qual.; (United States) Vol. 2:3; ISSN JEVQA
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

500200* -- Environment
Atmospheric-- Chemicals Monitoring & Transport-- (-1989)
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
AIR POLLUTION
DESIGN
EFFICIENCY
EXPOSURE CHAMBERS
FIELD TESTS
MODULAR STRUCTURES
PLANTS
POLLUTANTS
POLLUTION
SIMULATION
TESTING