MEASURING AIR POLLUTANT UPTAKE BY PLANTS - DIRECT KINETIC TECHNIQUE

The paper describes an approach that treats uptake of gaseous pollutants process from a chemical kinetics viewpoint; it has led to the design of a chemical reactor system suitable for plant growth and exposure, while meeting criteria necessary to apply the concept of a continuous stirred tank reactor. Use of the system to study nitrogen dioxide uptake by corn and soybean under several exposure conditions is presented. The system provided precise data that were readily amenable to mathematical modeling. The concept of a second-order rate constant for uptake is demonstrated which is shown to be independent of nitrogen dioxide concentration and leaf surface area, but directly dependent upon inverse total diffusion resistance.