A French company gives a houseplant the “superpowers” to capture the toxicity of the air. All this thanks to genetic editing.
Air pollution affects cities but also homes . Indoor home air is essential to health, and a simple houseplant can’t change that. Volatile organic compounds (VOC) deriving from the building materials of the place where we live are added to the external polluting fine dust . Some of them can lead to cancer, breathing problems and heart disease causing death.
Neoplants is a French company from Paris that focuses on improving the ability of houseplants to capture pollution and VOCs. The company chose a high-potential plant and began making genetic modifications. The goal is to activate ways in which this plant turns these compounds into a usable byproduct. Neoplants has chosen the pothos plant to create the first biological purifier.
The French company has modified the genome of the pothos plant in order to transform formaldehyde from the air into sucrose. Furthermore, it is also capable of transmuting benzene and other compounds into proteins. To summarize more clearly, the plant absorbs formaldehyde and benzene and then produces proteins and sugars used as nourishment. Here all this allows to increase its ability to capture toxic agents. Simply put, a living air purifier. This method will have a great impact on large-scale air purification.
- Neoplants induces a plant to capture toxic compounds from the environment (futuroprossimo.it)
