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Are they actually effective in anything but a sealed space shuttle? Nasa is the source of the plant air quality experiments people reference.

In anything but that air exchange will happen much faster than a houseplant can grow.

I love plants but I can’t imagine they do much unless you have an absolutely massive quantity.



The other issue with plants is that having them in any decent numbers means you’re likely to have at least some with a mold/fungus/pollen issue, so they actually reduce air quality. Outdoors that’s not so much of an issue because there’s airflow and the mold/fungus/pollen is dispersed, while inside your room it’s limited to a very small amount of still air.


Wish I could remember where I read it but the conclusion was that having indoor plants solely to increase air quality isn't a good idea. Obviously it's somewhat better than nothing but so minor as to be largely insignificant given how much air exchange there is with the outside world when you aren't on a shuttle


You need a vast number of house plants to make even a small difference. Basically you'd have to live in a greenhouse.


You would need to live in a biodome. The only way to remove all the CO2 you exhale would be to grow all the food you eat. Carbon in equals carbon out.

Plants still look nice though.


If it could be fairly dry, that might not be bad.


HEPA filters cannot remove nanoparticles and ionizing filters ionize the air, and well, ozone is not good for us. So plants are far superior in this regard to air purifiers, which are useless




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