Journal article
Potted plants do not improve indoor air quality: a review and analysis of reported VOC removal efficiencies
Journal of exposure science & environmental epidemiology, v 30(2), pp 253-261
01 Mar 2020
PMID: 31695112
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
Potted plants have demonstrated abilities to remove airborne volatile organic compounds (VOC) in small, sealed chambers over timescales of many hours or days. Claims have subsequently been made suggesting that potted plants may reduce indoor VOC concentrations. These potted plant chamber studies reported outcomes using various metrics, often not directly applicable to contextualizing plants' impacts on indoor VOC loads. To assess potential impacts, 12 published studies of chamber experiments were reviewed, and 196 experimental results were translated into clean air delivery rates (CADR, m(3)/h), which is an air cleaner metric that can be normalized by volume to parameterize first-order loss indoors. The distribution of single-plant CADR spanned orders of magnitude, with a median of 0.023 m(3)/h, necessitating the placement of 10-1000 plants/m(2) of a building's floor space for the combined VOC-removing ability by potted plants to achieve the same removal rate that outdoor-to-indoor air exchange already provides in typical buildings (~1 h(-1)). Future experiments should shift the focus from potted plants' (in)abilities to passively clean indoor air, and instead investigate VOC uptake mechanisms, alternative biofiltration technologies, biophilic productivity and well-being benefits, or negative impacts of other plant-sourced emissions, which must be assessed by rigorous field work accounting for important indoor processes.
Metrics
Details
- Title
- Potted plants do not improve indoor air quality: a review and analysis of reported VOC removal efficiencies
- Creators
- Bryan E. Cummings - Drexel UniversityMichael S. Waring - Drexel University
- Publication Details
- Journal of exposure science & environmental epidemiology, v 30(2), pp 253-261
- Publisher
- Springer Nature
- Number of pages
- 9
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000518280100004
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-85074947622
- Other Identifier
- 991019168419404721
UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
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InCites Highlights
Data related to this publication, from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool:
- Web of Science research areas
- Environmental Sciences
- Public, Environmental & Occupational Health
- Toxicology
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