How exactly does the CityTree work and what can it do?
Mosses have a huge surface, comparable to the human lung. On this surface, fine dust particles from the air sucked in are electrostatically attracted and stick, so to speak, si - milar to a microfiber cloth. The difference to the microfiber cloth is that the moss metabolizes the fine dust particles. That is, it „eats“ the fine dust. In extensive measurements we could determine that a Ci - tyTree can remove up to 82% of fine dust from the air. Ho - wever, the distance up to which this effect is measurable depends on numerous factors such as wind direction and strength. Under constant conditions, the effect is still scien - tifically detectable at 5 to 10 meters.
Each CityTree can clean, cool and humidify about 3,500 m³ of air per hour, which is equivalent to the breathing volume of 7,000 people. Although it is a highly effective air condi - tioner, filtering thousands of cubic meters of air every hour, one CityTree uses only the power of 5 light bulbs (about 125W). The advantage of this bio-filter over conventional air filters is also that it is never „full“, as the fine dust is converted to biomass by the moss. So it is a self-cleaning air filter.
The air flows through the vertical moss mats and is cleaned and cooled during the process.
The integrated sensor system is used for automatic moss irrigation and measures the moss performance in real time .
Filtered and cooled air gets into the environment through the ecological slat design of the City Tree.
Contaminated, warm air is sucked in by the integrated fans.
Where does the moss used in CityTrees come from and how long does it last?
There are about 20,000 species of moss all over the world, from the polar regions to the desert. Since we don‘t want to take the mosses out of nature, of course, and we are constantly striving to find better moss species and mixtu - res for our purposes, we have built the world‘s first vertical moss farm in Bestensee near Berlin. Here, mosses grow on a good 1,200 m² in the form of vertical moss mats. In nature, mosses need about four years to grow together into a dense moss surface. Through special cultivation and ideal supply conditions, we were able to shorten the time in our moss farm to less than 12 weeks. Once inserted into
the CityTree, our special bio-algorithm ensures that the mosses are well supplied. This means that they can theo - retically remain in the CityTree for an indefinite period of time, and we are working on perfecting the algorithm to do just that. Currently, however, we replace the moss mats every 3 months on average to ensure ideal performance at all times. These can then regenerate on the moss farm under ideal conditions—we call this our „moss spa”—and are then used again in cities.
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