Plants clean our polluted air

The importance of plants in our lives is well known by all, however a recent study has revealed a new fact that is not so well known, but of vital importance. And is that plants clean our air of polluting elements.

In addition to the scenic beauty offered by the forests of our planet, they also contribute to eliminating chemical pollutants by a third more than previously believed. In this lesson from a TEACHER, we are going to analyze this research so that you can better understand how they help purify the air.

A study by the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, in the United States, has managed to make this interesting discovery through gene expression studies and models computational.

The plants consume atmospheric chemical pollutants, which contributes to cleaning our atmosphere much more than the scientific community thought in a principle, but an important question among experts is how plants could absorb compounds chemicals.

To analyze this, the scientists focused on

white poplar, thanks to which they discovered that when the trees were subjected to stress, either by injury or by remaining exposed to harmful substances such as ozone, they began to absorb greater amounts of these products pollutants.

One fact that has especially surprised scientists is that how much the more polluted the air is by oxygenated volatile organic compounds (VOCs), more amounts absorb our trees and plants. Although, of course, there is a time when the plant is so saturated that it can no longer absorb more.

All this is due to the fact that plants produce chemical substances in order to protect themselves from threats, such as insects that attack them. Although if the amounts are too high, they become toxic and seriously harm your health.

In fact, if we continue to pollute the planet at the rate that we are doing now, all of our forests will be gone within 50 to 100 years.