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Design of TETHYS: a greenhouse plant-smart water harvesting and air-cleaning system
Summary
Researchers designed TETHYS, a greenhouse system that extracts water from indoor air using a desiccant wheel while simultaneously filtering airborne pesticides and microplastics, guided by real-time plant physiological monitoring. The system addresses the under-recognized problem of airborne microplastic release from agricultural operations, offering an engineering solution that protects both human health and the environment from plastic particle inhalation exposure.
A framework to formulate a multiscale model based on the “speaking plant” approach is proposed. It is composed of a network of sensors to assess plant physiological conditions and a desiccant dehumidification and air-cleaning system directly interconnected with a greenhouse exhaust fan system. The system, namely TETHYS is a water production unit that extracts water from greenhouse indoor air using a desiccant wheel and simultaneously minimizes the outflow of airborne pesticides and microplastics, thus protecting human health and the environment. For maintaining optimum crop conditions, the model directly monitors and evaluates plant responses to their environment on a real-time basis and signals the greenhouse exhaust fan motor to ramp up. Considering TETHYS advantages over programmable greenhouse climate time-based controller devices, it is a powerful “green tool” that can be used in greenhouses.