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Investigating the Effect of Environmental Temperature on CO2 Absorption Rate During Plant Photosynthesis

CSEF · 2023 Plant Biology First Award

Tong Sophie · 7

Overview

Plant photosynthesis is responsible for absorbing 25% of CO2 created on Earth. Research also shows indoor plants have abilities to reduce indoor air pollution. However, little attention has been paid to managing elevated indoor CO2 levels with plants. The present study is intended to investigate the relationship between environmental temperature and an indoor plant's net CO2 absorption rate, with light intensity and initial CO2 concentration kept constant. An Asplenium nidus was sealed inside an airtight container and the CO2 concentration inside the container was continuously monitored for three hours. The soil, leaf, and container internal temperature were also recorded. The experiments were conducted at five environmental temperature levels from 52˚F to 80˚F, with each level repeated three times. The results showed the average rate of CO2 absorption initially increased with temperature. The maximum absorption rate was reached at 60˚F, corresponding to 25% reduction in CO2 concentration. The absorption rate decreased as temperature continued to increase, and became near zero at 71˚F. When the temperature exceeded 74˚F, instead of absorption, the plant emitted CO2. At the maximum temperature 80˚F, the CO2 concentration increased by 17%. The study concluded that the plant net CO2 absorption rate depends on the combined effect of photosynthesis and cellular respiration. The rate is greatly influenced by environmental temperature. Optimum temperature can be identified to maximize plants' photosynthesis rate for effective CO2 reduction. In addition, the study also suggested that the leaf temperature is a more appropriate temperature to correlate with the photosynthesis rate than air temperature.

Source coverage

This record comes from a published award list, not a complete project archive. Its abstract comes from CSEF's public project showcase as archived by the Internet Archive before judging (https://web.archive.org/web/20230401224130/https://ca-csef.zfairs.com/showcase/ShowcaseInfo?f=838e60b7-ea75-46e8-865c-fde4864244b3); the version presented may differ.

Awards (1)

Competition history

  • CSEF 2023 Plant Biology · Entry J1814

Resources

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