According to estimation, modern people spend about 80% to 90% their time indoor everyday. In recent years, many reports reveal people under airtight buildings for a long time may have allergy, headache, eyes, nose or throat infects, easily catch a cold, skin dry and itch, feel sleepy, disgusting, difficult to concentrate, easy to feel tired, sensitive to the smell and so on. These are so called Sick Building Syndrome (SBS). Many research demonstrate that besides chemical or physical methods to decrease SBS, the most natural way is to use the indoor plants. This project is to test suspended particulate matter and CO2 reducing ability of 50 common indoor plants in Taiwan. All data were collected and their managements were also gathered into a guidance handbook. According to the results, the top 10 plant species to reduce dust are africa violet, iron cross begonia, emerald-ripple peperomia, gloxinia, climbing fig, pink polka, rieger begonia, kalanchoe, pot mum and nerve plant. The leaves of these plants are covered with trichome or corrugated on leaf surface. In bright indoor area (light intensity about 40 μmol m-2 s-1), poinsettia, rubber plant, gerbera, pink polka, cheese plant, boston fern, heartleaf philodendron or africa violet is helpful to remove high CO2 concentration of 1000 ppm or higher.

indoor plants, sick building syndrom