Solar greenhouses can be promising candidate for CO2 capture and utilization: mathematical modeling

Abstract

Solar greenhouses can be considered as efficient places for biological CO 2 capture and utilization if CO 2 enrichment becomes a common practice there. As CO 2 enrichment is applied only when greenhouses are closed, ventilated greenhouses--which represent a large percentage of greenhouses all over the world--cannot be considered for this practice. Consequently, ventilated greenhouses cannot be considered for CO 2 capture and utilization. The aim of this paper is to show--through modeling and simulation--that these ventilated greenhouses can be activated for serving as efficient CO 2 capture and utilization places if they are kept closed (to apply CO 2 enrichment) and used microclimate control methods alternative to ventilation. The paper introduces a realistic mathematical model in which all the processes and phenomena associated with the biological CO 2 capture and utilization by photosynthesis inside greenhouses are considered. The model validity and accuracy were ensured through the good agreement of its numerical predictions with the available experimental results in the literature. The effect of different environmental and planting conditions on the CO 2 capturing process (the photosynthesis process) is investigated. A case study was chosen to investigate the effects of the cooling method, cooling temperature, planting conditions, and CO 2 concentration level on the cumulative amount of captured CO 2 which represents the greenhouse capturing performance.The results show that the capturing performance of greenhouse can be enhanced from value as low as 1.0 g CO 2 / m 2 day for ventilated greenhouses with low planting density to a value as high as 140 g CO 2 /m 2 day for high planting density when alternative microclimate control methods and CO 2 enrichment are applied, considering the appropriate plant type. Additional benefits besides CO 2 capture are also discussed for the possible increase of the plant productivity and possible lowering of water consumption by plants. Keywords

Optimization of Greenhouse Microclimate Parameters Considering the Impact of CO2 and Light

“…A study [19] is attractive in terms of investigating the effect of carbon dioxide concentration on the rate of photosynthesis. This study proposes the main balance equations of the greenhouse microclimate model and provides the dependencies of the specific rate of crop photosynthesis on the concentration of carbon dioxide, the falling visible radiation and the temperature of the plant leaves.…”