Plant Bag, created by students from Delft University, recently won first prize for Battle of Concepts’ competition to design a personal, wearable air purifying system. The judges commended the bag for its user-friendly design and well-thought-out filtration system. The design tackles the problem of increasing air pollution worldwide.
The competition brief specified that all designs submitted had to incorporate the iGreen concept, which can be defined as the natural ability of plant roots to remove pollutants from the air.
Plant Bag is a backpack that houses a living plant and a ventilation system. Air is drawn into the plant’s root system, where it is finely filtered and passed up a tube to an adjoining enclosed collar that covers the nose or mouth.
The award-winning design effectively extracts micro-dust and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from dirty air, allowing users to breathe in clean air when wearing the backpack. In the next couple of months, a prototype of the Plant Bag will be developed and put through a trial phase.
Second prize for the competition went to a personalised scooter helmet with built-in plants and the third prize went to AtMOSSphere – a headset designed with purifying moss.