Houseplants & Indoor Air Quality
Posted: November 6th, 2019, 3:11 pm
Confirmation that the main benefit of houseplants is our psychological health rather than improving indoor air quality:
"Potted house plants are commonly thought to purify indoor air, often finding themselves in homes and offices for this reason. But scientists now believe their powers might be wildly overestimated.
Plants are known to soak up volatile organic compounds (VOC), a type of indoor pollutant. But simply cracking open a few windows or fitting an air handling system in an office can clear the air faster than plants, according to researchers at Drexel University, Pennsylvania."
Depending on the size of the space, the researchers calculated it would take between 10 to 1,000 plants per square meter (10.7 square foot) of floor space to clean the air at the same level as an open window or specialized equipment.
Waring told Newsweek he partly traced the overegged idea back to an oft-cited 1989 NASA study, which looked at how to purify the air of space stations. "
https://www.newsweek.com/house-plant-ai ... dy-1470046
"Potted house plants are commonly thought to purify indoor air, often finding themselves in homes and offices for this reason. But scientists now believe their powers might be wildly overestimated.
Plants are known to soak up volatile organic compounds (VOC), a type of indoor pollutant. But simply cracking open a few windows or fitting an air handling system in an office can clear the air faster than plants, according to researchers at Drexel University, Pennsylvania."
Depending on the size of the space, the researchers calculated it would take between 10 to 1,000 plants per square meter (10.7 square foot) of floor space to clean the air at the same level as an open window or specialized equipment.
Waring told Newsweek he partly traced the overegged idea back to an oft-cited 1989 NASA study, which looked at how to purify the air of space stations. "
https://www.newsweek.com/house-plant-ai ... dy-1470046