Plants

Dynomight—with calculations—proves that is not possible to reduce your indoor CO₂ by having plants.

People produce ~1 kilogram of carbon dioxide per day. That’s around 5.7 × 10²³ molecules or 0.948 moles per hour. (You may remember from high school that a mole is a gigantic number made up to avoid having factors of 10²³ everywhere.) Let’s keep it simple and call it one mole per hour.

Meanwhile, plants turn carbon dioxide into oxygen through photosynthesis, i.e. the chemical reaction of (6 water molecules) + (6 carbon dioxide molecules) + (energy) → (1 glucose molecule) + (6 oxygen molecules). The minimum energy physically needed to convert 1 mole of carbon dioxide into glucose and oxygen via this reaction is ~477 kilojoules.

So we’ve already got a lower bound. Say you have magical plants that somehow channel all incoming energy into photosynthesis with perfect efficiency. They’ll need ~477 kilojoules per hour, which converts to a continuous usage of 132.5 watts.

 That’s a bit more than what’s used by two incandescent light bulbs, which isn’t too bad.

But you don’t have magical plants.

Note: I cannot vouch for the calculations mentioned in the post, but hey, Gemini says its sound.



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