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I've actually purchased a couple of indoor plants, a snake plant and a peace lily, to help generate oxygen indoors. I noticed the air "tasted" better about a we

I've actually purchased a couple of indoor plants, a snake plant and a peace lily, to help generate oxygen indoors. I noticed the air "tasted" better about a week after I put them in the room. And I also noticed the air in my office feels better than the air in my apartment which has no plants. Whether that's something measurable I don't know, but while having these plants here I feel like I perform better.

lkbm 7y ago
https://www.gardenmyths.com/houseplants-increase-oxygen-levels/ https://www.gardenmyths.com/houseplants-increase-oxygen-leve... did some looking into this possibility. The TL;DR is that you're not likely to have enough plants to make a significant difference in terms of CO2/oxygen. Doesn't mean there's no positive effect, but it's probably not due to oxygen levels.
- hanniabu 7y ago
  > Photosynthesis converts CO2 to O2, but plants also respire. During respiration they convert sugar and oxygen into CO2 and water. This is the reverse of photosynthesis, and it happens in all cells, all of the time, day and night. Interesting, I wonder how that'll contribute to the snowball effect of global warming since as it gets hotter I'm sure they'll perspire more.
  - vkou 7y ago
    Plants solve prespiration by bringing water from their roots, up to their leaves. They burn sugars for energy they need to live, not for water they need to stay cool. Sugars are difficult to make, water can just be pulled directly from their environment. So, it won't be a noticeable effect.
  - im3w1l 7y ago
    Plants work on a similar principle as human nutrition. CO2 in - CO2 out = weight gain. A growing plant is on average* a net absorber of carbon dioxide. * On average, not constantly. Since they can't do photosynthesis in the dark, they release CO2 at night.
- vageli 7y ago
  The sources in that link seem to suggest that the benefits come from removal of CO2 and volatile organic compounds from the environment, versus attributing the benefits to oxygen generation.
sevencolors 7y ago
As an advocate for more indoor plants, I’m glad they’re making your environments feel better! The “taste” you’re describing is probably just the normal byproducts of the bacteria in the plant soil. Most folks plants collections don’t actually produce the amount of oxygen and filtration that the Internet would have you believe. Unless you’ve created a near greenhouse. Which I’d be a fan of. But I feel that they do make out living spaces feel cozier and smell better :) https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/03/indoor-plants-clean-air-best-none-them/584509/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/03/indoor-p...
vkou 7y ago
To live, you need ~400L of O2/day. If you want your plants to provide even 10% of that number - 40L, your houseplants will need to take CO2 out of the air, store the carbon, and release the oxygen. This means that they will need to grow by ~300g - nearly a pound, a day, in order to produce 40L of oxygen. Unless your home is a wild, gymnasium-sized jungle, your houseplants aren't producing any measurable amounts of oxygen. And, as a bonus point, they aren't even cleaning your air. (Although they do provide a lot of new surfaces for dust to settle, that you have to clean.) If you want to breathe better, open your windows. If your outside air has too much crap in it, buy a HEPA filter. If you breathe fine, and there's too much crap in the air, buy a fan with a HEPA filter attached to it (Also known as an air purifier.) If you want plants near you, buy plants.
- derefr 7y ago
  And what should you do if your outside air has in it too much CO/methane/other small-molecule gas particles that HEPA filters have no hope of trapping? Ignoring plants, there's gotta be some solution to this. What do they do to recycle the air up at the International Space Station?
  - vkou 7y ago
    > And what should you do if your outside air has in it too much CO/methane/other small-molecule gas particles that HEPA filters have no hope of trapping? You pack up, and move somewhere that's not the equivalent of sitting in the middle of a crude oil refinery. Plants won't deal with these problems, either. > What do they do to recycle the air up at the International Space Station? For the most part, they chemically scrub the CO2 out[1], use the equivalents of catalytic converters to pull things like trace ammonia out of the air, and move on with life. There isn't a lot of heavy industry that happens inside the ISS. If the air outside your window is literal poison, your house isn't sufficiently hermetically sealed for this to work. [1] The actual process they use is the Sabatier process: 2H20 + E => 2H2 + O2 CO2 + 2H2 => CH4 + O2. The water is brought up in resupply missions, the methane is vented into space. It's not a closed cycle (Which would require an enormous amount of plants), and its never going to have one, because it's going to be decommissioned in the next ~15 years.

lkbm 7y ago

https://www.gardenmyths.com/houseplants-increase-oxygen-levels/ https://www.gardenmyths.com/houseplants-increase-oxygen-leve... did some looking into this possibility. The TL;DR is that you're not likely to have enough plants to make a significant difference in terms of CO2/oxygen. Doesn't mean there's no positive effect, but it's probably not due to oxygen levels.

hanniabu 7y ago
> Photosynthesis converts CO2 to O2, but plants also respire. During respiration they convert sugar and oxygen into CO2 and water. This is the reverse of photosynthesis, and it happens in all cells, all of the time, day and night. Interesting, I wonder how that'll contribute to the snowball effect of global warming since as it gets hotter I'm sure they'll perspire more.
- vkou 7y ago
  Plants solve prespiration by bringing water from their roots, up to their leaves. They burn sugars for energy they need to live, not for water they need to stay cool. Sugars are difficult to make, water can just be pulled directly from their environment. So, it won't be a noticeable effect.
- im3w1l 7y ago
  Plants work on a similar principle as human nutrition. CO2 in - CO2 out = weight gain. A growing plant is on average* a net absorber of carbon dioxide. * On average, not constantly. Since they can't do photosynthesis in the dark, they release CO2 at night.
vageli 7y ago
The sources in that link seem to suggest that the benefits come from removal of CO2 and volatile organic compounds from the environment, versus attributing the benefits to oxygen generation.

sevencolors 7y ago

As an advocate for more indoor plants, I’m glad they’re making your environments feel better! The “taste” you’re describing is probably just the normal byproducts of the bacteria in the plant soil. Most folks plants collections don’t actually produce the amount of oxygen and filtration that the Internet would have you believe. Unless you’ve created a near greenhouse. Which I’d be a fan of. But I feel that they do make out living spaces feel cozier and smell better :) https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/03/indoor-plants-clean-air-best-none-them/584509/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/03/indoor-p...

vkou 7y ago

To live, you need ~400L of O2/day. If you want your plants to provide even 10% of that number - 40L, your houseplants will need to take CO2 out of the air, store the carbon, and release the oxygen. This means that they will need to grow by ~300g - nearly a pound, a day, in order to produce 40L of oxygen. Unless your home is a wild, gymnasium-sized jungle, your houseplants aren't producing any measurable amounts of oxygen. And, as a bonus point, they aren't even cleaning your air. (Although they do provide a lot of new surfaces for dust to settle, that you have to clean.) If you want to breathe better, open your windows. If your outside air has too much crap in it, buy a HEPA filter. If you breathe fine, and there's too much crap in the air, buy a fan with a HEPA filter attached to it (Also known as an air purifier.) If you want plants near you, buy plants.

derefr 7y ago
And what should you do if your outside air has in it too much CO/methane/other small-molecule gas particles that HEPA filters have no hope of trapping? Ignoring plants, there's gotta be some solution to this. What do they do to recycle the air up at the International Space Station?
- vkou 7y ago
  > And what should you do if your outside air has in it too much CO/methane/other small-molecule gas particles that HEPA filters have no hope of trapping? You pack up, and move somewhere that's not the equivalent of sitting in the middle of a crude oil refinery. Plants won't deal with these problems, either. > What do they do to recycle the air up at the International Space Station? For the most part, they chemically scrub the CO2 out[1], use the equivalents of catalytic converters to pull things like trace ammonia out of the air, and move on with life. There isn't a lot of heavy industry that happens inside the ISS. If the air outside your window is literal poison, your house isn't sufficiently hermetically sealed for this to work. [1] The actual process they use is the Sabatier process: 2H20 + E => 2H2 + O2 CO2 + 2H2 => CH4 + O2. The water is brought up in resupply missions, the methane is vented into space. It's not a closed cycle (Which would require an enormous amount of plants), and its never going to have one, because it's going to be decommissioned in the next ~15 years.