Indoor air pollution has traditionally received less attention than outdoors pollution despite indoors pollutant levels are typically twice higher, and people spend 80-90 % of their life in increasing air-tight buildings. More than 5 million people die every year prematurely from illnesses attributable to poor indoor air quality, which also causes multi-millionaire losses due to reduced employee’s productivity, material damages and increased health system expenses. Indoor air pollutants include particulate matter, biological pollutants and over 400 different chemical organic and inorganic compounds, whose concentrations are governed by several outdoor and indoor factors. Prevention of pollutant is not always technically feasible, so the implementation of cost-effective active abatement units is required. Up to date no single physical-chemical technology is capable of coping with all indoor air pollutants in a cost-effective manner. This problem requires the use of sequential technology configurations at the expenses of superior capital and operating costs. In addition, the performance of conventional physical-chemical technologies is still limited by the low concentrations, the diversity and the variability of pollutants in indoor environments. In this context, biotechnologies have emerged as a cost-effective and sustainable platform capable of coping with these limitations based on the biocatalytic action of plants, bacteria, fungi and microalgae. Indeed, biological-based purification systems can improve the energy efficiency of buildings, while providing additional aesthetic and psychological benefits. This review critically assessed the state-of-the-art of the indoor air pollution problem and prevention strategies, along with the recent advances in physical-chemical and biological technologies for indoor pollutants abatement.

传统上，室内空气污染比室外污染受到的关注要少，尽管室内污染物水平通常是室外污染水平的两倍，并且人们将80-90％的生命花费在增加气密建筑物上。每年有超过500万人因室内空气质量差而过早死于疾病，由于员工生产力下降，物质损失和医疗系统支出增加，这也导致了千万富翁的损失。室内空气污染物包括颗粒物，生物污染物以及400多种不同的化学有机和无机化合物，其浓度受几种室外和室内因素的影响。预防污染物在技术上并不总是可行的，因此需要实施具有成本效益的主动减排装置。迄今为止，还没有一种物理化学技术能够以经济有效的方式应对所有室内空气污染物。这个问题需要使用顺序的技术配置，但要花费大量的资金和运营成本。另外，常规物理化学技术的性能仍然受到室内环境中污染物的低浓度，多样性和可变性的限制。在这种情况下，生物技术已经成为一种具有成本效益和可持续性的平台，能够根据植物，细菌，真菌和微藻的生物催化作用来应对这些局限性。实际上，基于生物的净化系统可以提高建筑物的能源效率，同时提供更多的美学和心理益处。