Researchers have developed a houseplant that can clean the air in your home. By genetically modifying a common houseplant, pothos ivy, to absorb chloroform and benzene, they created a plant that can «eat» these potentially dangerous compounds and use them to fuel their own growth.
Houseplants add an attractive touch of green to your home, but in the future they could help protect you from dangerous chemicals as well.
Researchers at the University of Washington have developed a houseplant that can clean the air in your home. Traditional methods of air cleaning like the use of HEPA filters can remove allergens and dust particles from the air, but there are other molecules which are too small to be filtered out. Small molecules like chloroform or benzene can build up in a home from sources like chlorinated water or gasoline and can be potentially harmful to your health.
In order to cleanse these smaller compounds from the air, scientists have taken a common houseplant, pothos ivy (also known as Devil’s ivy), and genetically modified it so that it absorbs chloroform and benzene.
