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How did the soil-bed reactor prevent harmful trace gases from building up at Biosphere 2?
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Biosphere 2
Biosphere 2, located in Oracle, Arizona, U.S., shown in 2008. The facility was originally developed to study survivability and assess whether humans were capable of building and living in self-sustaining colonies in outer space. It was later used as a scientific research facility.
The soil-bed reactor at Biosphere 2 functioned by actively pumping air through the soil located in the facility's agricultural domes. This process exposed trace gasesāwhich originated from both technological and biological sourcesāto soil microorganisms. These microorganisms then performed metabolic breakdown of the gases, effectively preventing them from accumulating to levels that could have been harmful to the environment or the inhabitants.1