[Home]  [Headlines]  [Latest Articles]  [Latest Comments]  [Post]  [Sign-in]  [Mail]  [Setup]  [Help] 

Status: Not Logged In; Sign In

Hezbollah tactics, weapons stall Israeli advance

President Kennedy's Final Address to the United Nations General Assembly

RFK Jr. Explains Plan For Reforming The CIA

Harris Campaign Recruits Foreign Volunteers, Tells Noncitizens How To Skirt Donation Rules

Lame Yuck! With Nothing To Lose, Biden Goes On Baby-Mouthing Spree At White House Halloween Party

The Fastest Way To Reverse A Fatty Liver Naturally | Dr. William Li

CIA Advisor Warns: This is the beginning of the 2025 Civil War

When Evil Is Allowed In, Evil Stays

US layoffs rose 42% in three years, reaching 1.83M in September.

Iran Will Carry Out 'Definitive, Painful' Retaliatory Strike, Likely Before Election: CNN

How 2024 Election Will Lead To Second Civil War

Tulsi Gabbard Drops a Killer Trump Ad

Israel Genocide Tracker Account Sparks 'Panic' Among Israeli Soldiers

Battleground Voting Shift: Hispanic Voters Now Driven by Issues, Not Party Lines

North Carolina Appeals Court Rules to Allow Voters Who have Never Lived in the U.S. To Vote in State Elections

The 5 Tiers of Stolen Elections (Dems already did 1 & 2)

A Palestinian Family Goes to Pick Up Olives. It Ends in an Execution by Israeli Soldiers

Israel Suffers A Multimillion Dollar Economic SUCKER PUNCH!

The Babylon Bee Endorses Communist Harris

Nosy NY Times Journos Uncover Elon Musk's Secret Luxury Compound In Austin

A 20% surge in gov't spending inflates the national debt, inflation, and interest rates, now reaching 10% of GDP

MI EARLY VOTE SHOCKER! An Excess of 125,428 Votes Cast!

DMSO is the ivermectin for strokes and neurological damage

The Curious Case Of Ariane Tabatabai

Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) Projects Are Foundering In Five-Eye Nations. What Gives?

Pennsylvania News Station Apologizes For Showing Presidential Election 'Results'

Feminist Author, Former Advisor to Al Gore's Campaign, and Noted Intellectual Naomi Wolf Endorses Donald Trump for President!

US Supreme Court Lets Virginia Purge Noncitizens From Voter Rolls

8 Alarming Signs: US Economy Poised for a Hard Landing

Israels extermination campaign in Northern Gaza includes ditch-executions of civilians


Health
See other Health Articles

Title: These are the best houseplants to improve indoor air quality, study finds
Source: [None]
URL Source: http://www.sciencealert.com/the-rig ... or-air-quality-researchers-say
Published: Aug 27, 2016
Author: DAVID NIELD
Post Date: 2016-08-27 04:48:06 by Tatarewicz
Keywords: None
Views: 69
Comments: 1

ScienceAlert...

If you're looking to improve the quality of air in your home, potted plants are a good place to start. But not all indoor plants are created equal.

A new study has found that certain varieties actually do more than pump more oxygen into your surroundings - they can also clear the air of harmful chemicals.

The new study, conducted by researchers from the State University of New York, looked specifically for plants that had the ability to absorb volatile organic compounds or VOCs, which are potentially harmful pollutants that can come from paint, furniture, printers, dry-cleaned clothes, and other household products.

"Buildings, whether new or old, can have high levels of VOCs in them, sometimes so high that you can smell them," said study leader Vadoud Niri.

A high concentration of VOCs can lead to health problems such as dizziness, asthma, or allergies, but get the right plant on your desk or kitchen sideboard, and you could save yourself the trouble of installing extra ventilation.

While there's nothing new about the practice of using plants to clean air (technically known as biofiltration, or phytoremediation) Niri and his team conducted precise experiments to determine the efficiency and capabilities of five different types of houseplants - the jade plant, spider plant, bromeliad, dracaena, and Caribbean tree cactus.

Each plant was placed in an air-tight chamber with specific concentrations of several types of VOCs. By measuring the air quality over time, the researchers were able to see which did the best job of purifying the air.

houseplants-2Healthy houseplants (L to R): the bromeliad, the dracaena and the spider plant. (Credits below.)

The bromeliad plant got a gold star from the team, managing to clean up 80 percent of the pollutants in six of the eight VOCs tested. Others scored highly for certain pollutants: the dracaena absorbed 94 percent of the chemical acetone, used in nail polish remover.

Spider plants, meanwhile, were very fast at removing VOCs, starting work just a few minutes after being placed inside its container.

Niri was prompted to start his research after going into a nail salon and being put off by the smell, Sarah Kaplan reports for The Washington Post. Now, he wants to test his plants in a real salon setting to see how effective they can be at dealing with VOCs when they're not in sealed containers.

It's important to note the new study hasn't yet been peer-reviewed or published at this stage, because the team is still refining their experiment. This means we can't read too much into the study until it's been independently verified, so don't go putting bromeliads in every square foot of your home based solely on these results just yet.

Another thing to note is that the extent of the links between VOCs and health problems have been debated in the past, but the evidence suggests there is at least some relationship between the air we breathe indoors and a number of particular medical issues.

What is certain is that VOC concentrations can be much higher indoors than outdoors.

Niri says houseplants could be a natural and effective way of keeping our air clean, and really, what have you got to lose by making your house look a bit more green?

"Each of us breathes over 3,000 gallons of air each day," he told the Post. "That's why air quality is extremely important and air pollution is an important environmental threat to human health."

The results of the study were presented at the 252nd National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in Philadelphia.

Post Comment   Private Reply   Ignore Thread  


TopPage UpFull ThreadPage DownBottom/Latest

#1. To: Tatarewicz (#0)

Bromeliad? He speaks as if it's a specific plant?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bromelia ceae

_____________________________________________________________

USA! USA! USA! Bringing you democracy, or else! there were strains of VD that were incurable, and they were first found in the Philippines and then transmitted to the Korean working girls via US military. The 'incurables' we were told were first taken back to a military hospital in the Philippines to quietly die. – 4um

NeoconsNailed  posted on  2016-08-27   10:55:59 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


TopPage UpFull ThreadPage DownBottom/Latest


[Home]  [Headlines]  [Latest Articles]  [Latest Comments]  [Post]  [Sign-in]  [Mail]  [Setup]  [Help]