Do potted plants provide the same benefit as BioFilters?
A. No – while potted plants do provide numerous benefits, they do not remove indoor air pollutants like BioFilters because it is not the plants themselves, but rather the microbes inhabiting the rhizosphere surrounding the roots of the plants that do the work. The method of planting plants a Naturaire® biofilter system increases microbial populations over that found in bare soil, and the mechanical design of the system brings indoor air in contact with these microbes in order to achieve biofiltration and phyto-remediation. Also, the plants species affects the composition of its associated microbial population, and therefore careful selection of plants species promotes desirable VOC-degraders. Many plants produce antibiotic compounds that may actually inhibit biological activity.
