one study found several common houseplants reduced CO2 concentration in a room by 15-20%. It seems reasonable to assume that placing several houseplants in a room would significantly increase this effect, though likely with diminishing returns.
Unfortunately, I am quite a bit less optimistic about this. (Caveat: I only looked into this very briefly)
From quickly looking at the conference paper you cite, it seemed that the plants were in 1 cubic meter chambers and reduced CO2 by ~50-100ppm for the most part (~5-12% reduction) based on table 1.
But bedrooms are generally a lot larger and contain at least one human breathing out carbon dioxide into them. This paper suggests that since humans breathe out about 300g per day, ~400 plants, in good conditions, would be needed to offset this. Naturally only a portion of that 300g is breathed out into one’s bedroom at night, but it still seems like one might need ~100 plants for one person in a room, and one would need to ensure that these are plants which take up CO2 at night, rather than exhaling it at night.
Thanks for flagging this. It does seem from this that I’ve oversold the potential value quite significantly! I’ll add a note to the section to flag this comment and that this doesn’t appear to be as helpful as hoped.
Thanks! It’s a pity, because I’m a big fan of house plants, and the heavy blackout blinds I use prevent getting fresh air via windows at night, so this would have been convenient if true.
I think (though, again, I only read it quickly) the paper includes estimates for both carbon sequestered and biomass growth for the plants.
I believe the plant which they used as the reference for that rough figure above increased in biomass by 132.5g but sequestered 56.4g carbon over several weeks, and the 0.8g carbon fixed per day comes from that latter figure.
Unfortunately, I am quite a bit less optimistic about this. (Caveat: I only looked into this very briefly)
From quickly looking at the conference paper you cite, it seemed that the plants were in 1 cubic meter chambers and reduced CO2 by ~50-100ppm for the most part (~5-12% reduction) based on table 1.
But bedrooms are generally a lot larger and contain at least one human breathing out carbon dioxide into them. This paper suggests that since humans breathe out about 300g per day, ~400 plants, in good conditions, would be needed to offset this. Naturally only a portion of that 300g is breathed out into one’s bedroom at night, but it still seems like one might need ~100 plants for one person in a room, and one would need to ensure that these are plants which take up CO2 at night, rather than exhaling it at night.
Thanks for flagging this. It does seem from this that I’ve oversold the potential value quite significantly! I’ll add a note to the section to flag this comment and that this doesn’t appear to be as helpful as hoped.
Thanks! It’s a pity, because I’m a big fan of house plants, and the heavy blackout blinds I use prevent getting fresh air via windows at night, so this would have been convenient if true.
If you want to absorb 300g/day of CO2 you need the plants to grow by ~300g/day. Which is a lot!
(It’s only rough: 300g of CO2 is 12/(12+2*18) carbon, but when absorbing carbon plants also take in water with goes the other way)
I think (though, again, I only read it quickly) the paper includes estimates for both carbon sequestered and biomass growth for the plants.
I believe the plant which they used as the reference for that rough figure above increased in biomass by 132.5g but sequestered 56.4g carbon over several weeks, and the 0.8g carbon fixed per day comes from that latter figure.