Talk:NASA Clean Air Study

Article merged: See old talk-page here

Proposed Reorganization
WikiDV (talk) 09:08, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
 * 1) Rename article to: NASA Clean Air Research Original name is probably workable
 * 2) original references used in this article never seem to use this name for the study, so this name seems to be invented afterwarts? By who and why? This should be considered in this article.
 * 1) Make the content of "NASA Clean Air Study" a subtopic, perhaps changed to "Publicly Available Results (1989)" or similar, since the content refers to the work of one individual concerning a particular subset of air cleaning research
 * 2) Merge the contents of "List of Air-filtering Plants" to supplement the subtopic describing Wolverton's research. (Note that there may be many links to the chart in this article; e.g.: Indoor_air_quality)
 * 3) Add other air cleaning projects and related missions (Apollo, SkyLab, ISS, etc.) conducted by NASA.

Linking to other relevant content may yet prove useful:


 * 1) Human_Research_Program
 * 2) "spin-off" technologies (e.g. Wolverton Environmental)
 * 3) https://humanresearchwiki.jsc.nasa.gov
 * 4) Underwater_habitat
 * 5) Indoor air quality and/or subtopics
 * 6) etc....

Clean up and Citation
The topic deserves clarification and better citations. Links to popular magazines and commercial interests should be removed.

Chart should be pared down; reference to toxicity removed (not part of NASA study) and list only plants referenced in research. Removed substances listed should also be restricted to those tested. (Miimno (talk) 00:07, 5 May 2014 (UTC))

Proposing: A PNG of a chart from published research. This shows levels, margin of error and so forth

Citations are confused. In some cases, the tag "NASA" simply refers to a web page that summarizes "NASA research". On investigation, one finds that the "researcher" is actually Wolverton. (Miimno (talk) 00:45, 5 May 2014 (UTC))

Additional suggestions for cleanup and citations (2016/03/23): WikiDV (talk) 09:47, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
 * 1) links to references 1 and 4 should be switched
 * 2) Reference 4 and 18 are exactly the same (or 1 and 18 depending on the switching links 1 and 4 :-))
 * 3) It seems that mr. Wolverton wasn't a Nasa researcher anymore (retired in 1990, http://www.wolvertonenvironmental.com/bcw.htm) when he published the 1993 article in reference, where he calculated that theoretically 2 or 3 Boston ferns/9,3m² should be enough for sufficient removal of xylene/formaldehyde. So it seems the sentence "NASA researchers suggest efficient air cleaning is accomplished with at least one plant per 100 square feet of home or office space" isn't correct and perhaps should be changed to something like "According to a study from the environmental consultancy firm Wolverton Environmental Services suggests efficient air cleaning is accomplished with at least two or three plants (depending on the plant species?) per 100 square feet of home or office space, depending on the chemical to be purified. This air-purifying effect was examined in controlled laboratory circumstances and theoretically derived for real-life circumstances."

"Areca palm"
In this case, I have a feeling that this may actually refer to Chamaedorea elegans (palour palm) which is sometimes sold as "areca palm". The horticultural trade isn't always good with names. Reference no. 6 does not make any mention of Dypsis lutescens as at all (which is the revised name for Chrysalidocarpus lutescens, neither of which I can see mentioned in the sources). But I did see Chamaedorea elegans mentioned and this is probably what should be in this article instead of Dypsis lutescens. Dypsis lutescens would have a difficult time growing indoors anyway. --KaffirLemon (talk) 01:43, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Reference 2 does refer to Bamboo palm, which is Dypsis lutescens. I think it might be correct because that species is often sold as a quite large plant (I saw a mass of them at Ikea recently). They might not do well as a house plant, but they are definitely sold for use in larger buildings, so it is easy to imagine researchers getting some for their tests. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 12:49, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

This Study only applies to Space Station = Closed Space
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indoor_air_quality "Air leakage in most homes, and in non-residential buildings too, will generally remove the chemicals faster than the researchers reported for the plants tested by NASA". -- ee1518 (talk) 08:58, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

To add: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41370-019-0175-9 Not sure that this page should even exist given https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indoor_air_quality#Effect_of_indoor_plants exists — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.221.247.203 (talk) 19:23, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that reference. I've added it to the article, clarifying in the lead that the study is not applicable to typical buildings. -- Dandv  09:58, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

Should this even be its own page?
There is a good deal of other research on plant uptake/adsorption/metabolism of VOCs and whether or not that's relevant to indoor air quality in real world applications. It's weird for this one study to have its own page. --Arctostaphylospallida (talk) 20:43, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Agree. Is this particular study (NASA's) notable, or just the general topic that plants can help clean the air. The fact that there are multiple studies (and not just from NASA) supports the general topic. If it's just NASA, then why is there so much space devoted to not-that-study results? DMacks (talk) 18:01, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Photos in table
Hi! Today I tried in good faith to begin to add photos of the plants to the table (and failed miserably). I looked at the version of this article in Arabic and that one uses photos nicely and doesn't break. Does anyone think it's possible to do something like that here? Victor Grigas (talk) 01:05, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm the one that reverted it... mostly due to the breaking of the table, but also because it made the table very wide... I just didn't think photos were needed for a table of simple yes/no checks and numerical data... the Arabic table looks nice, but I personally think it's still just a little too busy, and a little distracting from the subject matter... feel free to restore the images if you want, I'm more than happy to concede if others like them... - Adolphus79 (talk) 01:32, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I oppose the images editorially, though I completely recognize the good-faith nature of their addition. Seeing the images of the plants does not add to understanding the topic at hand: the effects of the plants on air quality. And making the table much longer (each row taller) makes it harder to see as many rows at a time, which makes it harder to see the overall patterns (example: "are most good at benzene?" "is formaldehyde not well-removed by any?" "do lots of them seem to work overall?" etc). DMacks (talk) 03:06, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Categoty required?
Should we create a wikipedia category Air-filtering plants? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.71.17.254 (talk) 16:35, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Removal of Notability Tag
The NASA Clean Air Study has been cited in numerous mainstream news articles since it was published, include significant specific coverage in papers like the Financial Times. A simple Google search shows this. It's also been discussion on mainstream television in many western countries. The article meets the WP:GNG criteria. Aeonx (talk) 20:23, 3 May 2020 (UTC)