air pollution outside is easy to spot
hanging over the city or sputtering from
a tailpipe but there's a lot of indoor
air pollution too even if it's not as
obvious this is scientific American's 60
second science I'm Christopher and a
yachtie
got a minute oh it's caused by volatile
organic compounds or VOCs they can come
from building materials like panes
carpets home and personal care products
like cleaning chemicals air fresheners
etc valued Neary an analytical chemist
at the state university of new york
Oswego and also they can come from
cosmetics and that cosmetics part is
what caught Neary's attention one day
when I went ill and nail salon with my
wife I noticed the smell of specifically
acetone in there acetone can irritate
your eyes skin nose and throat and at
high concentrations can cause nausea
headaches or other nervous system
problems Neary figured that one way to
get rid of acetone might be with house
plants he then ran his own experiment
using an airtight chamber 8 VOCs in
concentrations similar to those found in
nail salons and 5 common house plants a
jade plant a spider plant a bromeliad a
Caribbean tree cactus and what's known
as a Dracaena plant turns out after a
12-hour test it was the bromeliad that
scrubbed the most chemicals from the air
but as for his original quest removing
acetone from nail salons the Dracena
beat all the others sucking up 94% of
the offensive compound he presented the
results at a meeting of the American
Chemical Society in Philadelphia for a
house or apartment he says use a variety
of plans to make sure that you take all
type of plcs from your indoor air plus
they're an energy free alternative to
other air cleaning devices in other
words a truly green solution thanks for
the minute for scientific American's 60
second science I'm Christopher and Anja
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