A French company has created in the laboratory the first plant capable of cleaning the ambient air of its pollutants, as effectively as 30 indoor plants.
After four years of research, Neoplants co-founder Lionel Mora is hoping his company will launch in North America in the next quarter with the “P1” plant, a first model that is a full-size houseplant. The main prospect explained his concept to QUB Radio on February 1.
“Those are real plants,” insisted Lionel Moral at first. It is the generation of biotechnological plants designed to bind the four main pollutants in your home much more effectively, but above all to use them as a source of carbon. That means they are able to capture them and turn those pollutants into something useful for them.
creation process
A variety of organisms are used to create plants.
“We’re looking at certain organisms in nature that aren’t plants in general. [et] that can survive and thrive in extremely polluted environments, said Lionel Moral. We look at the genetic code of these organisms and extract the pieces of code that allow us to do this. Then we take this code and paste it into the attachment. So we put these new genes into the plant, which allows it to develop these extraordinary abilities.”
Tailored for the bedroom
“We recommend a neoplant for a bedroom of 13 square meters, as stated by Lionel Mora. […]. We’ve targeted four pollutants in this area because this is where you’ll spend most of your time in a day. This is where we can achieve the most.”
The one who worked for Google before starting his company said that an air purifier is ineffective at certain types of particles, which is not the case with his facility.
“We founded Neoplants with the mission of putting nature at the heart of innovation,” explained Lionel Mora. We founded this company with a deep belief that nature is the most powerful technology there is and that today we are beginning to have the tools to work with it, rather than simply consuming it.
The product has received the green light for marketing from the Americans for the time being, but the co-founder is still waiting for approval from Ottawa for sale in Canada. The company plans to develop further plant models in the coming months. The plant is available in advance for $179.