How Effective Are Plants at Purifying the Home Air?

  

Most people don’t realize how much pollution is in the indoor environment of buildings, where we spend most of our time.

For example, many of the products we use to clean and freshen our homes, schools, and workplaces add hidden toxins to the air.

“There’s no smell in the air,” says Anne Hicks, a pediatric pulmonary specialist at the University of Alberta in Canada.

“If you can smell it, there’s a chemical in the air that’s getting into your nose. It’s all air pollution, regardless of whether it smells good or bad,” she adds.

“Indoor air pollution is very high, and it’s unknown to what extent, because my neighbor’s house has different air pollution than mine,” Hicks says.

Indoor air pollution is extremely complex, messy, and often beyond people’s control.

For example, road traffic produces nitrogen dioxide, while moisture and structural problems in buildings can lead to rot.

Expensive Solution

Air purifiers with high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters can help in this regard.

But their high cost, as well as the energy cost to run them, can put them out of reach for some homes.

That's why the idea of ​​having plants that passively and inexpensively clean the air seems appealing.

Basically, plants leave absorb carbon dioxide and other pollutants, which the plant then uses in various processes.

What's particularly important here is the community of microorganisms and the medium in which they grow, such as soil or compost, which, according to many studies, absorb more pollutants than plants.

How Many Plants to Plant?

A 1989 NASA study found that houseplants can remove formaldehyde and other volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from the air. But the study was not realistic for real-world conditions.

A home would have to be a forest to reduce VOCs significantly.

“You need a lot of plants in a very well-lit space to have a significant effect on VOCs and many other gases,” says Tijana Balanosa, a senior horticultural scientist at the Royal Horticultural Society and a research fellow at the University of Reading.

Similarly, for carbon dioxide, “you need a large number of plants to have a measurable effect on the scale of a room.”

Is Planting More Plants the Answer?

Some researchers, including Tijana Bellanova, have moved from individual potted plants to green walls (vertical structures with plants), which can concentrate more plants and filter the air more effectively because of the way air moves between them.

With active green walls, he says, “the air in the room is pushed up from the surface where it would naturally be if you just had plants.”

However, these green walls are expensive to install and maintain.

Just Look at Them...

When Kindel Consultancy moved to its current London offices in 2015, they filled one of their meeting rooms with plants.

They aimed was to monitor and record the impact of the plants on indoor air quality. But maintaining them proved difficult.

It also became clear that plants were not having the same impact on air quality as mechanical ventilation systems and air purifiers.

Fluffy moss is very pleasant to look at and touch, but it does not absorb pollutants.

When clients ask if plants improve air quality, Kavita Kumari, associate director of Kendall’s London office, walks them through the benefits and limitations of plants.

She recommends plants that are relatively easy to care for while reducing organic matter and producing oxygen, although she admits that their impact is modest.

One of these plants is known colloquially as the snack plant or tiger tang.

Kumari says that while most plants absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen during the day, this plant is capable of doing the same at night.

Bioengineering

According to Kumari, opening windows to let indoor air pollutants out doesn’t work in heavily built-up areas, where outdoor air pollutants can also enter.

Scientists are now working on a new breed of plant designed to be particularly effective at purifying the air.

Researchers at the University of Washington in the US have genetically modified pothos with a synthetic version of a protein found in rabbits that can process chloroform and benzene.

The company Neoplants has also modified genes in pothos plants so that they can recycle certain organic compounds.

The company has also developed beneficial bacteria that are particularly effective at breaking down organic compounds, which are delivered to the plant's root system.

It is the microbiome, more than the plant itself, that can purify the air.

However, despite all these improvements, we cannot rely on plants alone to purify the air.

At the moment, the benefits of plants in this regard are limited: they cannot compete with air-purifying dyes.

Still, plants may have other benefits, such as improving mood, productivity, and creativity.

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