This company just bioengineered a plant-bacteria combo to clean air better than an air purifier
This article is part of a series of sustainability-themed articles we're running to observe Earth Day 2024 and promote more sustainable practices. Check out all of our Sustainability Week 2024 content.
Plants and trees take carbon monoxide from the atmosphere. That’s common knowledge, but given the amount of pollutants we produce, both outdoors and in our homes, plant life can only do so much to clean our air. However, the bioengineering firm Neoplants has a new idea – and it may change the way you feel about houseplants and their air-cleaning capabilities.
This week, the French company launched its first product: Neo Px. It’s not technology in the traditional sense. In fact, almost all of it is organic or reclaimed. Inside a home, you might be challenged to even spot the product, which is the result of four years of bioengineering research and directed evolution. And where hardware and software engineers work in ones and zeros, Neoplant’s scientists worked with four letters, specifically the letters denoting four of the components of DNA – Adenine (A), Cytosine (C), Guanine (G), and Thymine (T) – to re-engineer toxin-eating bacteria and create a new kind of eco-forward house plant.
Sitting last week with the company’s co-founders, CEO Lionel Mora and CTO Patrick Torbey, PhD, who has a doctorate in genomic engineering, amid roughly 30 house plants, they directed my attention to one single, vibrant, marble queen pothos resting in a beige planter. This was no typical plant. The planter, or self-watering “shell,” as they called it is made of bioplastics from recycled agricultural waste, and features a vented shell and basket interior that holds the plant with “supercharged air purification capability.”
