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RENTALS & SALES
5 Air Purifying Indoor Plants
THE BEST OFFICE PLANTS FOR INDOOR AIR QUALITY
When it comes to indoor air quality, plants may liter- ally be a breath of fresh air.

However, not all plants are equally effective at removing VOCs from indoor air. Research into air purifying indoor plants has yielded several top species that are especially good at absorbing VOCs with their leaves and roots.

NASA’s landmark 1989 research on air purifying indoor plants focused on three common chemicals – benzene, trichloroethylene and formaldehyde. Vadoud Niri’s 2016 research on plant VOC uptake at the State University of New York at Oswego ( bit.ly/2zqDawF) examined the effectiveness of several species of air-purifying plants at removing eight compounds: benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, p-xylene, o-xylene, acetone, dichloromethane (methylene chloride) and trichloromethane ( chloroform). Exposing the plants to several VOCs at once brings the research a step closer to a typical office environment where multiple VOCs would be present.

The best indoor plants that clean the
air, according to research by Niri and
others, include:
Bromeliad (Guzmania
lingulata)
This tropical plant removed at least

80% of six of the eight compounds Niri tested from the air in its 76-liter test chamber. It also placed fifth of 50 houseplants studied by retired NASA scientist B.C. “Bill” Wolverton.

Dracaena (Dracaena
deremensis)

Also known as Warneckei, Dracaena
deremensis removed 50% of formal-
dehyde, 52% of benzene and 10% of
trichloroethylene from a chamber over
a 24-hour period in NASA’s pioneering
1989 study. It also outperformed all four
other plants in Niri’s study by removing
94% of the acetone from the air in its
chamber.

Spider Plant (Chloro-
phytum comosum)

Niri rated this plant as “lightning fast,” noting that the concentration of VOCs immediately began to go down in the spider plant’s test chamber as soon as the plant was placed inside.

Jade Plant (Crassula
argentea)
Jade scored highest for removing tolu-
ene from the air in Niri’s lab tests.

Golden Pothos
(Scindapsus aureus)
NASA’s research saw the Golden
Pothos paired with an activated carbon
filter system. Together, they excelled in
two-hour test periods examining how
well they removed benzene and trichlo-
roethylene from test chambers. The low
concentration test saw benzene levels
drop from just short of 0.25 parts per
million (ppm) to barely detectable levels,
while trichloroethylene started at about
0.15 ppm and similarly ended near zero.

NASA observed similar results with the high concentration chamber. A concentration of 35 ppm trichloroethylene and 37 ppm benzene dropped to between 0 and 1 ppm over the same two-hour span.