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The Environment / Re: Do indoor plants produce significant amounts of oxygen?
« on: 21/03/2022 19:37:14 »
It's unlikely that a houseplant would produce enough oxygen to significantly increase the amount of available oxygen in a house.
However, it's possible that houseplants could, in some situations, provide a significant (significant meaning measurable, not necessarily useful) decrease in carbon dioxide concentrations in a house.
Imagine a small airtight room with a volume of 27m3. At atmospheric pressure and it would contain roughly 20% oxygen (5400 L O2 = 240 moles of O2 = 7700 g of O2). If the air inside were 400 ppm CO2 (10.8 L CO2 = 0.482 moles of CO2 = 21.2 g of CO2)
A typical human would exhale about 1000 g of CO2 per day (removing about 730 g of O2). So if the room were totally air-tight, and there was no plant inside, the oxygen would decrease from 7700 g to 6970 g (from 20% to 18.1%, which wouldn't be great—this is why we don't typically live in airtight rooms!) On the other hand, the CO2 would increase from 21.2 g to 1020 g (from 400 ppm or 0.04% to 1.9%—again, not great, but a much more significant change!) A plant (or group of plants) with access to sunlight and water could easily scrub this amount of CO2 each day, an convert it back into O2 (though, I think there would only just be enough space for one human and all those plants in that small room!)
However, it's possible that houseplants could, in some situations, provide a significant (significant meaning measurable, not necessarily useful) decrease in carbon dioxide concentrations in a house.
Imagine a small airtight room with a volume of 27m3. At atmospheric pressure and it would contain roughly 20% oxygen (5400 L O2 = 240 moles of O2 = 7700 g of O2). If the air inside were 400 ppm CO2 (10.8 L CO2 = 0.482 moles of CO2 = 21.2 g of CO2)
A typical human would exhale about 1000 g of CO2 per day (removing about 730 g of O2). So if the room were totally air-tight, and there was no plant inside, the oxygen would decrease from 7700 g to 6970 g (from 20% to 18.1%, which wouldn't be great—this is why we don't typically live in airtight rooms!) On the other hand, the CO2 would increase from 21.2 g to 1020 g (from 400 ppm or 0.04% to 1.9%—again, not great, but a much more significant change!) A plant (or group of plants) with access to sunlight and water could easily scrub this amount of CO2 each day, an convert it back into O2 (though, I think there would only just be enough space for one human and all those plants in that small room!)