Can potted plants increase oxygen content indoors? This could be a big misunderstanding.

Photosynthesis can produce oxygen, which is something everyone has learned in textbooks, so we naturally think that planting potted plants indoors can increase the amount of oxygen in the air, but this may be a big misunderstanding.

It is important to know that plants are also breathing at the same time of photosynthesis. Photosynthesis produces oxygen, while respiration consumes oxygen. If the oxygen produced by photosynthesis can exceed the oxygen consumed by respiration, the oxygen content in the room can be increased. Plant respiration can be regarded as constant, while photosynthesis is directly related to light intensity.

In photosynthesis, there is a word called light compensation point, which refers to a light intensity that can balance the oxygen produced and consumed by plants. Generally, the light compensation point of sunny plants is 500 to 1000 lux (lux is the unit of light intensity, which refers to the amount of light radiation passing through per square meter), while shade-loving plants are slightly lower, so what is our indoor light intensity?

In order to understand the light intensity more vividly, we need several examples to compare. The light intensity in the corridor at night is about 5: 10 lux, the light intensity that allows us to read comfortably is 50: 60 lux, the brightness of the TV screen is 80 lux, the light intensity in the home is about 100 lux, and the light intensity in the office is about 300 times 500 lux. In other words, the lighting of ordinary people can not even reach the light compensation point, and plants consume more oxygen than they produce, so putting potted plants indoors will not increase the oxygen content at all.

So how do you get the pot to produce oxygen? The best way is to put it indoors where it can be exposed to direct sunlight. On a sunny day, the sunlight intensity is 30000 to 130000 lux. You have read it correctly. With so many zeros, you can easily throw off indoor lights for several streets, even on cloudy days. Even on cloudy days, the outside light intensity is 3000 to 10000 lux, which is the same as indoor lighting.

In addition, plant photosynthesis also has an upper limit, beyond this point, no matter how strong the light, photosynthesis will not increase, this point is called light saturation point. The light saturation point of shade-loving plants is below 10000 lux, this kind of plants are generally afraid of direct sunlight, so it is better to keep them in the place of scattered light feet; the light saturation point of sun-loving plants is generally about 25000 lux, so it is suitable to be raised directly in the sun.

There are also some more unusual plants, such as rice and wheat, whose light saturation point is as high as 80000 lux, and the light saturation point of young leaves of corn can not even be detected in natural light, which may be the result of human seed selection, because the higher the light saturation point, the higher the sunlight utilization efficiency of the crop, the higher the crop yield.

Finally, I would like to remind you that photosynthesis needs water in addition to sunlight and carbon dioxide, so don't let the potted plants bask in the sun in a state of lack of water.