How many plants do you need to breathe? TESTED

Ever wondered how many plants do you need to breathe in a sealed room? Well, I built one and bought a LOT of plants...

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Thanks @ChrisRollins for eating popcorn and saying plants!
Quincy made fun of my algae, go make fun of his channel
@Qsandbank
Thank you @hacksmith for the "emergency air supply"

[chrixthegreat]

Here is where you went wrong with the snake plants. They use a form of photosynthesis called CAM (crassulacean acid metabolism) photosynthesis. This is an adaption for mostly desert plants. They only breath at night so they do not produce oxygen when there is light on them. This is to help prevent water loss as it is cooler at night in deserts and the evaporation of water while breathing is less. They use CO2 and water at night to make a 4 carbon chained molecule which they will use during the day along with light to make sugar. So putting the plants in a room with the lights on did literally nothing.

[tomholroyd]

Can I genetically engineer my skin cells to have chloroplasts? I understand it's not easy being green, but you get to go outside for lunch

[superimpala]

My childhood question wasn’t ever “how many plants do I need to breathe on mars” it was always if you could stick plants into a diving tank so people could breathe forever underwater

[michaelbronson]

I like that this is a guy that didn’t entirely know what he was doing but tried his hardest to learn and that’s the type of casual drive that I like

[omegahaxors]

"What if I need to poop?"
Plants: "Please do."

[ActiveAngel]

Env researcher here: What lights were you using? Its relatively dark; they dont look remotely sufficient for your application. Plants are only going to process co2 via photosynthesis. If you are providing either insufficient or minimal light, then you can expect to observe either zero or minimal effect, respectively.

I'd be interested if you tried it again, but build a chamber outside, with windows for lots of indirect sunlight (it'll be cheaper than buying leds).

I would water the snakeplants until it drained out the bottom of the planters, wait 1 hour, and then commence testing.

Dont forget your controls. One with no humans. One with no plants. One with neither.

Lastly, it may get hot in there. Make a gameplan, even simple ice packs and a bottle of water for yourself.

[moisesszz]

I'm from Costa Rica, my great grandmother plant 2 trees of Cas in the yard of my house, cas is like small green guava, the trees already have more then 100 years they are huge and my house is in the middle of a city close to big Factory, and the difference of breading in the yard of my house or going outside were there is not trees just small plants and closer to the factory is absolutely abismal, thanks to that I learn to appreciate and understand how important are plants or how amazing are the trees that are especially big, I notice the huge difference for the first time when I start to make exercise when I went to run or walk around my city I feel tired sooner then when I make excercise in my yard, the difference is insane the quality of the air is so much better that I can literally double the time and exercises and the feeling is so much better. Your video blow my mind, amazing content congrats and the best wishes for your projects.

[trip_smulatr]

19:13 "5% of that 2 grand"

Bro, just say $100

[JerryDougherty]

I was part of a team that did a 90 day (mostly) closed loop life support system test at Johnson Space Center back in the mid 90’s. We used dwarf wheat plants. 22, 000 of them. We planted 4 different crops in rotation. Harvesting and using this as part of their food. This gave us the average equivalent of about 1.5 persons worth of O2. We had a crew of 4 in the enclosure and they did at least 1 hour of vigorous exercise. I applaud your efforts to run this test just because you are curious 👏👏👏

[perigrin]

ex-professional algae farmer here: That scale up from the pale green "piss bottle" up all the deep green 2 liter bottles was actually quite impressive.

[dansan]

Im so happy you're chasing what you really want. Every time you try, you took what you learned and go bigger to find an answer is like an adventure i feel apart of. Pretty engaging.

[popsfishing]

Spaceship: lack of oxygen detected! You have one minute until depletion.
Me: let me get grow some plants real quick !

[prodeous]

That is one heck of an experiment. Feels like I'm watching a mythbusters episode

[danielharpst]

Plot twist. Never made it past the first test, the rest was just hallucinations

[StrUpFax]

Thing is also, as the bioreactors reach peak growth and fill out their container, they'll enter the lag phase where they stop growing exponentially and just survive, you have to have a system that constantly filters out some cells and adds nutrients back into the reactor for max growth time

[daniilikyay]

Awesome dedication! I did a quick google search based on a hunch that was confirmed; snake plants are CAM plants, meaning they absorb CO2 and release O2 AT NIGHT and during the day photosynthesise using the CO2 they stored, also keeping the O2 inside. So in your setup their pores were not open to gas exchange.

(FYI the reason they do this is because they are native to hot climates and opening their pores for gas exchanges makes them dry up in the hot days)

[jotp]

Interesting experiment, but note that a significant portion of the CO₂ might just be dissolving in the large volume of water, potentially around 1.45 g/L at room temperature. To verify, measure the dissolved CO₂ concentration in the water with a CO₂ test kit, direct sensor, or by calculating it from pH. Consider this in your analysis to accurately assess the algae’s impact.

[dragonlordd]

This was something i always wondered and it might be very important data especially these days. Im so happy i found this. Im totally saving this video and making some of these just for fresher air at home. A good back up plan in case things get really bad too. Thank you so much for all your hard work.

[stratify]

This was fantastic to watch. Great blend of science and entertainment. Thanks for all your hard work and waiting. Well done!

[AsherKadmiel]

FINALLY a guy who doesn't quit before reaching the final result, I've seen far to many people end the video with "it is possible but im not doing it" so thank you for going through with it