How do plants remove chemical vapor from the air?
(1) Plant leaves can absorb certain organic chemicals and destroy these chemicals by a process called metabolic breakdown. This was proven by a group of German scientists who labeled formaldehyde with a radioactive carbon 14 tag and followed its absorption and metabolic destruction inside a spider plant (Chlorophytumn comosum). The formaldehyde was metabolized and converted into tissue products such as organic acids, sugars and amino acids as demonstrated by the radioactive carbon 14 label. This information was published in the Plant Physiology Journal in 1994. [Martina Giese, Ulrike Bauer-Doranth, C. Langebartels, and Henrich Sanderman, Jr. Detoxification of formaldehyde by the spider plant (Chlorophytum comosum). Plant Physiology, 1994, 104: 1301-1309. (2) When plants transpire water vapor from their leaves, they pull air down around their roots. This supplies their root microbes with oxygen. The root microbes also use other substances in the room air, such as toxic chemicals, as a s
