Bags of peat moss reveal hidden pollution inside university libraries
Wu Q, Li Z, Mo G, Zhang Z, Mu Y
Urban Ecology
The same moss that carpets bogs and fills your hanging baskets can soak up airborne pollutants, so a few grams of it can work as a cheap, living air monitor for your home or workplace.
Researchers hung small mesh bags of Sphagnum moss in three university libraries for 45 days and measured the combustion-related pollutants the moss absorbed. The moss picked up clear differences between rooms, older and newer buildings, and autumn versus winter, when heating and outdoor air pushed levels up. Because the moss costs little, it could let many more indoor spaces be checked than expensive electronic instruments allow.
Key Findings
Total PAH levels in moss ranged from 487.20 to 1,049.86 µg/kg in autumn and 734.60 to 3,167.35 µg/kg in winter.
Phenanthrene, naphthalene, pyrene, and fluoranthene were the dominant PAHs; autumn sources were mainly petrogenic, while winter showed mixed petrogenic and pyrogenic inputs at older libraries' study rooms, linked to domestic heating.
Indoor-to-outdoor ratios pointed to indoor sources at some sites in autumn but outdoor infiltration in winter, and levels varied with room function, building age, location, and season.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Small bags of peat moss hung in university libraries soaked up airborne pollutants and revealed how indoor air differs by room, building age, and season. Winter levels were up to three times higher than autumn levels at some sites, showing moss can serve as a cheap air quality sensor.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Sphagnum palustre moss bags as sentinels to monitor indoor air PAHs in university libraries.
Indoor air quality in libraries impairs user health and productivity. This study first employed Sphagnum palustre moss bags as low-cost sentinels to monitor indoor polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons ...
open_in_new Read full abstractAbstract copyright held by the original publisher.
Species Mentioned
Was this useful?
Want to tell us more? (optional)
Thanks for the note!
Something went wrong — please try again.
Too many submissions. Try again in an hour.
Rapid disruption of pollination function by the invasive plant Impatiens glan...
That pretty pink-flowered plant spreading along your local riverbank or woodland edge could be quietly starving native wildflowers of the bee visits they nee...
Sphagnum is a genus of approximately 380 accepted species of mosses, commonly known as sphagnum moss, also bog moss and quacker moss. Accumulations of Sphagnum can store water, since both living and dead plants can hold large quantities of water inside their cells; plants may hold 16 to 26 times ...