Review: Neoplants Neo Px

Neoplants has an attractive pitch: a living alternative to an air purifier bioengineered to rid the home of those toxic vapors known as volatile organic compounds, or VOCs. Its first product, the Neo Px, claims to be 30 times more efficient at air purifying than a regular houseplant. It arrived at my home in a sturdy cardboard box.

These are big claims in a little box. At around a foot tall, the plant system is touted as “the first bioengineered air purifier for your home.” From the company’s Instagram and marketing materials, I thought Neoplants had genetically modified the Pothos plant, supercharging its phytoremediation ability to remove pollutants from the air. Scientists have done this, but the Neo Px uses a regular Marble Queen Pothos. It’s the “Power Drops”—the microorganisms that are meant to live in the soil—that are bioengineered.

A Self-Sufficient Plant

Photograph: Lisa Wood Shapiro

The beige shell that comes with the plant is made out of a thermoplastic polyester polylactic acid (PLA) and has an unobtrusive design that easily blends with a variety of interior styles. PLA is derived from natural sources, and the Neo Px’s shell comes from flax.

It’s biodegradable in industrial composting settings, like the ones offered to New York City residents, but it won’t break down in a backyard compost and PLA rots at about the same pace as plastic in landfills. The planter is engineered for maximum airflow both from the top and the vents at the shell’s bottom, though every time I moved the Neo Px, a small amount of soil escaped through those vents.

As per the instructions, I filled the water well and coaxed the delicate water gauge back into the planter. Next, I cosplayed a botanist, mixing the water and Neoplants' Power Drops in my Neo Px glass beaker with the glass wand, and then I poured the potion on top of the soil. The entire process took about half an hour.

I had to move the Neo Px to several different locations to keep my cats from nibbling the leaves. The Pothos is toxic to pets and can cause irritation in the mouth, trouble breathing, and gastrointestinal pain. I ended up putting aluminum foil around the plant to keep them at bay.

Photograph: Lisa Wood Shapiro

The Claims

Is the Neo Px an alternative to an air purifier? To start, the plant is unable to filter particulates out of the air. Unlike a HEPA filter that employs regulated accordion folded filters, the plant cannot remove smoke, pollen, and dust along with those invisible small particulates, PM 2.5, that can turn the sky orange and get into the deepest parts of the lungs. (A regular HEPA filter cannot capture vapor or gases, but it can when combined with a carbon filter.)

The Neo Px is touted as having the ability to filter out VOCs, targeting three vapors: benzene, toluene, and xylene. This is done through the use of the company's bioengineered Power Drops. Each Neo Px is promoted as having the air cleaning ability of 30 plants, and in the company's press materials, website, social media, and emails to me, Neoplants cites the nearly four-decade-old NASA plant study as proof. In short, the NASA plant study found that plants in a closed chamber, smaller in size than a bathtub, were able to rid the air of VOCs over a certain amount of time.

Photograph: Lisa Wood Shapiro

I first learned about the air-purifying benefits of plants back when I started covering air quality. Back then, like now, plants lack standardized testing for measuring their efficacy inside a home. Neoplants isn’t the first company to conjure up the NASA study. Plant sellers like Bloomscape and The Sill have air-purifying plant lines.

It’s worth noting that the NASA plant study was cosponsored by the Associated Landscape Contractors of America, known today as the National Association of Landscape Professionals (it runs the NALP political action committee). Your houseplants have a lobby. One could say Big Plant was behind that NASA study. A 2020 meta-analysis of 37 studies found that plants perform differently in closed-chamber studies than they do in living environments.

The Reality

According to the original press materials and the Neoplants website, the Neo Px supposedly can clean the air of 160 cubic feet of space, slightly larger than a phone booth. How many Neo Px plants would I need to clean the air of my dining room? At 16 by 10 feet, I'd need 10 plants to capture the VOCs in the room. At $139 a pop, that puts the price for ridding my dining room of toxic vapors at $1,390. I can easily buy a HEPA filter/carbon combination like the Air Doctor 5500 for under $1,000, or two Rabbit Air BioGS 2.0 purifiers for under $800.

However, when I reached out to Neoplants about the room volume, the company said the “160 feet 3” on its website was a misprint and it meant 160 square feet, not cubic feet. That meant I'd need six plants to clean my entire apartment. That brings the total to $834 to clean the air in my entire apartment.

Photograph: Lisa Wood Shapiro

How would I know my plant’s working? Most standalone consumer air quality monitors can tell me about general VOCs, but to parse out benzene I would need a photoionization detector (PID). PIDs aren’t made for the average consumer and often cost thousands of dollars. Short of investing in an expensive detector, there’s no real way to see whether the plant is working. Most high-end air purifiers on the market have built-in sensors, albeit without a benzene reading, but they can self-adjust the level of fan speed depending on the pollutants detected in the air. The plant has none of those features.

One of the most effective ways to rid your home of toxic vapors and gases is by opening a window. Granted, the outside air quality needs to be good, but Neo Px was tested in a sealed chamber. Unless you’re living in Biosphere 2, humans live in dynamic environments with airflow, windows, and doors; most homes, especially old apartments, have leaky envelopes. Most mechanical and electric purifiers have warranties that span years, while the Neo Px is guaranteed for 30 days.

I could buy a Marble Queen Pothos from The Sill for under $50; even West Elm is in the Pothos business. I could also pick one up at my local hardware store. There are options for nonplastic self-watering pots out there as well. I want to believe that adding plants to my home will clean my indoor air. But can I trust that the Neo Px with its Power Drops can do all that? Also, in that NASA study, they used Miracle-Gro.