A New Method for Sensing Soil Water Content in Green Roofs Using Plant Microbial Fuel Cells.

ABSTRACT: Green roofs have many benefits, but in countries with semiarid climates the amount of water needed for irrigation is a limiting factor for their maintenance. The use of drought-tolerant plants such as Sedum species, reduces the water requirements in the dry season, but, even so, in semiarid environments these can reach up to 60 L m-2 per day. Continuous substrate/soil water content monitoring would facilitate the efficient use of this critical resource. In this context, the use of plant microbial fuel cells (PMFCs) emerges as a suitable and more sustainable alternative for monitoring water content in green roofs in semiarid climates. In this study, bench and pilot-scale experiments using seven Sedum species showed a positive relationship between current generation and water content in the

SUBMITTER: Tapia NF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5795870 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature