The new invention is bound to be popular. “One of the side effects of the pandemic is that people are much more aware of what’s in the air they breathe,” Patrick Torbey, a molecular biologist and chief technical officer of Neoplants, told Inverse.
No electricity required
One of its main attributes is that it does not require electricity and therefore does not pollute. In addition, in a time when wildfires trouble many regions, air purification is in great demand.
The new invention even has the potential to remove volatile organic compounds (VOC) which conventional air purifiers can simply not process. This is because the compounds are so small that they cannot be captured by traditional methods.
However, plants are designed to be able to catch, absorb and metabolize even the smallest of particles. Neo P1 does exactly that and comes in the shape of one of the most common plants.
“We started with one of the most popular houseplants in North America,” said Lionel Mora, the startup’s co-founder and chief executive officer.
This was no easy task, however, as the pothos vine, which is also known as devil’s ivy, had not had its genome mapped. The Neoplants team, therefore, began with this task.
“It’s like trying to build a plane while flying,” Torbey explained.
The whole ordeal lasted four years, but in the end, the engineers produced a plant that can metabolize four major indoor air pollutants, including formaldehyde and toluene, and that can even absorb certain VOCs.
