Critical Analysis of “Fresh Air Designer Packaging: The Bio-filter”.

Critical Analysis of “Fresh Air Designer Packaging: The Bio-filter”.

Instructions:

1. Read the article titled “Fresh Air Designer Packaging: The Bio-filter”.

2. Using the active reading strategies we learned in the first few weeks of the course, annotate and dissect the article.

3. Provide a technical summary of the article including a “Parts Analysis” and “Operating Principles” for the bio-filter. Remember to also include a formal sentence definition and some general background information.

4. Next, analyze the article for purpose, audience, structure/organization, credibility of author, clarity, language, and bias.

5. Finally, compose a critical analysis essay that contains the following parts:

1. 1. A clear introduction outlining the author’s thesis and your evaluative/analytical thesis.
   2. A technical summary, including a formal sentence definition, a brief summary of the parts and operating principles of the biofilter, and any relevant background information.
   3. An analysis section that addresses the points you raised in your thesis (this section can be multiple paragraphs).
   4. A brief conclusion that highlights your overall evaluation of the article.
   5. Aim for your entire critical analysis essay (including the technical summary) to be between 500-800 words.

6. Proofread and edit your work before submitting it.

Fresh Air in Designer Packaging: The Bio-filter

(Words in italics appear in a glossary at the end of this article)

Outdoor air intake is a standard solution for flushing out volatile organic compounds

(VOCs) and improving indoor air quality, but it has countless operational dilemmas and high costs. With external sources that are often too cold, too hot, too humid, too

smoggy or even (during the summer of 2003) too smoky, outdoor air typically has to be

filtered and warmed or cooled before it can be circulated throughout a building.

Biofiltration is an emerging alternative that absorbs and breaks down VOCs as air

moves through a living wall of plants and associated microbes. Rather than bringing in

air from outside, biofilters allow building operators to replicate the outdoor environment.

“It’s basically the same process that nature is using to keep outdoor air clean,” says Alan

Darlington, President of Air Quality Solutions Ltd., a developer of biofilter technology and an early researcher in the field at the University of Guelph.

Biofilters are vertical panels of synthetic mesh through which water continually trickles

and plants grow hydroponically. As air travels through this mass, common indoor air

contaminants such as formaldehyde, benzene, toluene and trichloroethlene pass into the

water where they are then broken down by microbes on the plant roots. Up to 90% of

formaldehyde and 50% of toluene can be removed in a single pass through.

“The water is really a vehicle for biologicals,” Darlington says. “It is re-circulated. There’s a reservoir at the base and there’s a pump that lifts it back up to the top.” Ducts can be positioned to capture emerging air and channel it into the ventilation system, or the air can simply flow into the surrounding area to create a more contained clean air zone.

One of the oldest existing examples can be found in the Canada Life Building in

downtown Toronto – a project Darlington and other researchers from the University of

Guelph launched in the mid 1990s. Since then, living walls have been built at Niagara

Under Glass, an agricultural tourism venture near Niagara Falls, and at the Northern

Centre for Advanced Technology in Sudbury. In November, 401 Richmond Ltd. will

install a living wall in the lobby of the 90-year-old Robertson Building, a historic

factory/warehouse that the company has recently restored to provide more than 93,000

square feet of office/commercial space on Spadina Avenue in Toronto’s downtown west

area.

Biofilters are built in modules and can range in size from two square metres to the three storey, 10-foot-wide model planned for the Integrated Learning Centre at Queen’s

University in Kingston, or the 170-square-metre living wall that will be completed later

this fall in the atrium of the new University of Guelph-Humber building on Humber

College’s northwest Toronto campus. “We work with a ratio of one square metre of

biofilter to 100 square metres of floor space,” Darlington explains.

Tracking results

The Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) recently received a grant

through the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ Green Municipal Enabling Fund to

build a living wall and assess its operational and economic performance. Researchers

will monitor the biofilter’s influence on indoor air quality, energy efficiency and

employees’ health and productivity over an eight month period. Project proponents – the

TRCA, along with Air Quality Solutions, the City of Toronto’s Public Health department

and the Green Roof Consortium – hypothesize that biofilters should cut energy costs by

reducing the need to draw and then condition outside air, but there are currently few

statistics to compare costs or air contaminant levels before and after a biofilter is

installed.

“A large part of achieving more sustainable communities is market transformation,” notes

Lisa King, the TRCA’s Sustainability Specialist. “There have been some prototypes of

living walls here and there, but feasibility data is lacking and it is needed to make these

technologies really replicable and marketable. We anticipate that there are energy

savings and air quality improvements from this technology, but we need to show the

economic payback so that others will follow.”

The $53,700 Green Municipal grant covers about 35% of the project costs. Much of the

preparatory investment has gone into retrofit requirements such as relocating duct work

to connect to the living wall in the lobby of the TRCA’s 15,000-square-foot office space,

while biofilters typically cost $1,500 to $2,000 per square metre to construct. “Compared to a traditional interior plant space, our costs are pretty comparable,” Darlington says. “80% of the maintenance is just standard horticultural maintenance. If the plants are healthy, the system is healthy.”

The living wall will be constructed at the TRCA later this fall and will incorporate a range of standard house plants. Diversity of plant species is important to support a varied

microbial population that can metabolize a greater number of pollutants. “Generally, any plant put into the system will improve its efficiency. The other benefit is just that it greatly improves the aesthetics of the system,” Darlington observes. “The brighter the space, the more choice we have in the plants we can use. It’s mainly based on the light conditions.”

Living lab

The living wall is expected to be a new focal point in the TRCA’s lobby, which has been

reorganized so that visitors will have easy access. An adjoining meeting room has been

converted into a more casual gathering place for the approximately 100 employees

where they can enjoy the new indoor greenscape and researchers can perhaps gauge

its effect on overall office ambience and employees’ wellbeing.

The initiative also supports the TRCA’s strategic plan, which is based on a philosophy of

the “Living City” with a particular emphasis on healthy rivers, bio-diversity and

greenspace, sustainable communities and business excellence. “As part of acting on

that vision, we have to demonstrate our beliefs in our own facilities and create

educational opportunities for the public,” King says.

Researchers plan to study a biofilter’s performance in the new 150,000-square-foot,

University of Guelph-Humber building – an Ontario Superbuild affiliation between the

University of Guelph and the Humber Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning.

The project is the largest scale application of the technology anywhere in the world, and

the building’s mechanical system has been designed so that 100% of the makeup air

could be supplied by the biofilter.

The 30’ x 55’ living wall in the building’s four-storey main central atrium is visible

from every public space and corridor and creates a striking focal point for the building,

while situating the biofilter with optimal natural light. The project is seen as an ideal

opportunity to integrate leading University of Guelph research into a learning, working

and leisure environment.

“Our goal is to create a community where students and faculty can learn from one

another, both inside and outside the classroom,” says David Trick, Chief Executive

Officer of the University of Guelph-Humber. “The plant wall creates an environment

where students and faculty will want to linger after class. It is also an outstanding

example of university research in action.”

Similarly, the green wall slated for the new Integrated Learning Centre for the Faculty of

Applied Science at Queen’s ties into the concept of experiential learning. “You have to

see it, live it, breathe it. You can’t just read about it,” asserts George Sweetman, Director

of the Integrated Learning Centre. “It’s important that engineering students get exposure

to these things, and the green wall will be literally right at the front door as they walk in.”

The three-storey biofilter will be one of a wealth of environmentally sustainable

technologies and components in the $25-million, 60,000-square-foot building, which is

scheduled for completion in March 2004. It has earned a four-green-leaf rating under the

international Green Leaf Eco-Rating Program, establishing the Integrated Learning

Centre as a national leader in ecologically efficient design, practices and management.

Abridged from Carss, B. (2003, October). Fresh air in designer packaging.  Canadian Property Management, 18 (6).                                        

Glossary

makeup air: fresh air brought into a building to “make up” for the air removed through exhaust

hydroponically: grown without soil in water or other liquid

volatile organic compounds: Chemical substances containing hydrocarbons (hydrogen and carbon atoms) which evaporate into the atmosphere. Indoor sources include tobacco smoke, wall paint, carpeting, building products, furnishings, cleaning materials, solvents, and office supplies. In sufficient quantities, VOCs can cause eye, nose, and throat irritations; dizziness; and headaches. Some VOCs are suspected carcinogens.

WRIT 120

Critical Analysis Rubric