Moss top

What it does

It reduces urban heat islands, absorbs CO₂ and fine dust, and lowers vehicle cooling and heating energy. Installed on car roofs, it acts as a forest in cities without green space. Moss grows well with just water, making it easy to maintain.

Your inspiration

Due to the climate crisis, not only are cities generating road dust and increasing carbon dioxide emissions due to the heat island effect and excessive use of cars, but East Asia is also struggling with the fine dust problem. While looking for a solution to this, I learned about the ability of moss to absorb carbon dioxide and collect fine dust, and it was created by conceiving moss as an invention that would save a city in such a hot weather.

How it works

Moss absorbs carbon dioxide 10 times more than pine trees and absorbs fine dust. It is installed on trucks and buses, among other roads that receive the most solar energy in the city, to absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen. To this end, compatible frames are detachable on buses from various companies.

Design process

In order to create compatible frames for buses of various companies, the concept of a detachable frame was conceived. To do this, we designed a plate on which moss would be placed by using a cut-out structure to withstand the force in a long span vehicle such as a bus, and it was made detachable by simply being squeezed by the force of a screw. However, the force of the thread was more vulnerable to the vibration of automobiles than expected, so we designed a special clamp for this purpose. This clamp was designed to bite the frame of the bus with the force of a spring and to offset the momentum by fixing it with fixing pins connected to the moss plate. This means that frames engaged with each other will not be removed from the bus unless someone intentionally removes the fixing pins. The frame was manufactured through this, but the next step was to fix the moss to the plate. As a result of using various adhesives such as instantaneous adhesives, woodlock bonds, rice glue, etc., the most robustly fixed through woodworking bonds and moss were combined. The disadvantage of the prototype made through this is that it was not tested for wind tunneling. In the future, if the wind tunnel laboratory is in a condition, it will be tested and an aerodynamic frame will be produced.

How it is different

Fine dust and carbon dioxide capture play the same role as conventional urban purification inventions using moss. However, the big difference is that there is a big difference in the concept of maximizing carbon dioxide capture capacity by installing the most photosynthetic asphalt road on the flat shelf of a bus or truck on the most vulnerable asphalt road in the heat, adding green space to the only road without landscaping in the city, and even collecting dust generated from roads immediately.

Future plans

It plans to discover the problems of this work through prototypes, grow it into a life-sized work and apply it to actual city buses to measure how much heat and carbon dioxide can be reduced in the city, and propose it to the city hall and city council based on the measured values, and apply the Moss top to most buses.

Awards