Artificial Trees

Artificial Trees for removing Carbon Dioxide from the atmosphere

Glowing artificial trees have been developed by researchers at New York’s Columbia University, working with Influx Studio in Paris.

• Architects: Influx Studio
• Project: Boston Treepods
• Location: Boston, Massachusetts, USA
• Collaborators: Collaboration with ShiftBoston
• Project Year: 2011

Artificial trees for Co2 scrubbing

Boston’s TREEPODS INIATIVE proposes to embody, and artificially enhance, the most important biological characteristic of natural trees: the capacity to clean the air, taking the CO² and releasing O².   The aim ff this collaboration is to allow the achievement of Boston’s global goals in terms of carbon reduction programs in the short time, giving us enough time to make the change from the present fossil fuel economy into a new Zero carbon energy economy. The proposal could be define as a CO2-scrubbing living machine. Treepods may well redesign in an urban radical new way our polluted urban environment, interacting with natural trees, and enhancing its carbon absorption capacity. In that way, those artificial trees don’t replace the natural ones, but they act like small urban “air cleaning infrastructures”. Advanced technologies are actually already developed that allow the capture of the atmospheric carbon dioxide from ambient air in an efficient, economic and sustainable way. Developed by Dr Klaus Lackner, Director of the Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy at Columbia University, this revolutionary process is based on the discovery of the ‘humidity swing,’ a technology that enables the energy-efficient capture of CO2 from air, allowing to close the carbon cycle and creating a valuable product for beneficial use.

The proposal could be defined as a CO2-scrubbing living machine. Treepods shall redesign in an urban radical new way our polluted urban environment; interacting with natural trees, and enhancing its carbon absorption capacity. In that way, those artificial trees don’t replace the natural ones, but they act like small urban “air cleaning infrastructures”. Advanced technologies are nowadays developed enough to allow the capture of the atmospheric carbon dioxide from ambient air in an efficient, economic and sustainable way. Developed by Dr Klaus Lackner, Director of the Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy at Columbia University, this revolutionary process is based on the discovery of the ‘humidity swing,’ a technology that enables the energy-efficient capture of CO2 from air, allowing to close the carbon cycle and creating a valuable product for beneficial use.

Artificial Trees in the street

Biomimicry

The aim of the project is to create, using biomimicry, an air cleaning and CO² catcher integrated urban device. Looking at nature we can learn from one of the most unique trees in the world, the Dragon Blood Tree (Dracaena cinnabari). Its branches at maturity produce an umbrella shaped crown optimizing its form to create a canopy that provides a maximum of shading surface. The way that its canopy allows the wind flow is showing us an intelligent form like design.  The TREEPOD will be inspired by that, along with its branching structure in terms of storage and distribution of resources from ground to the canopy.

The TREEPOD takes the Dragon tree like form to create an important canopy surface that will provide shadow, and that will host a solar photovoltaic cells to harvest the energy necessary to power the air cleaning system and the urban lamp function.  The canopy branching structure ends with a myriad of bulbs. They multiply the contact points between air and CO², serving as a filter.  Working like as alveoli in a human lung, here is where the cleaning gaseous exchange takes place: an alkaline and environmentally friendly resin that reacts with air holding CO². When the CO² saturated resin reacts with water it releases CO² for storage, and then it could be used again in the same process.

Exploded view

Structure

The tree will be made with recycled and recyclable plastic. We propose to use the PET (Polyethylene terephthalate) which is the material commonly used for drink bottles. It presents several relevant advantages: it is availabile in large quantities as recycled raw material, it can assume different colorations and degrees of transparency, it can be easily processed to obtain complex forms and, last but not least, it has good tensile resistance and mechanical properties. The entire TREEPOD structure is composed by modular elements, assembled as shown in the scheme.

Positioning in City