Biome Air Purification System
Last Updated: Mar 17, 2025With allergy season in full bloom in many parts of North America, homeowners who suffer from respiratory issues due to pollen, animal dander, dust mites, ragweed, molds, and other common allergens tend to prefer to stay indoors. One recent survey found that almost 55 percent of people in the US suffered from allergies. Allergic rhinitis, commonly referred to as hay fever, affects up to 30 percent of all US adults and 40 percent of US children.
But how do you protect your indoor air quality? Changing the air filter in your HVAC system is a straightforward fix that most homeowners do regularly to limit the number of allergens and other pollutants and contaminants that make your way into your home. Heat Recovery Ventilators (HRV) and Energy Recovery Ventilators (ERV) are other great solutions for improving the indoor air quality of homes with a tight building envelope or are built to passive house standards to increase overall energy efficiency.
Filling up every spare corner of your home with indoor air purifying plants is another strategy to help your home mimic the fresh, pure air of a forest ecosystem. Plants play an essential role in purifying the air we breathe, sucking up carbon dioxide, releasing oxygen into the air we breathe, and getting rid of all sorts of common air contaminants. The problem, unfortunately, is that not every homeowner was born with a green thumb, and many of us struggle mightily to keep even a simple succulent plant alive.
We found an innovative solution: Biome has recently developed a modular wall panel that grows plants hydroponically. This living wall system combines an aesthetically pleasing wall hanging that naturally filters and purifies the air inside your house while also incorporating the latest smart home technology to help you keep your plants alive. Before we discuss the Biome, it’s essential to understand why plants are beneficial for our health.
Table of Contents
- The Importance of Indoor Plants
- The Biome Air Purification System
Each tile of the Biome Taiga comes with embedded LED lighting that allows the unique wall hanging to double as a space lighting system. When placed in a dark corner of the home, this air purifier can enliven a typically dark area with unique mood lighting. The Biome Taiga is also equipped with smart home technology, allowing homeowners to monitor their indoor air quality closely. The Biome Taiga will observe the carbon dioxide levels in your home and the accumulation of certain particulate matter that can negatively impact your health. The real-time data from the system can be sent to your phone or your email address so that you can closely follow the quality of the air inside your home.
In terms of effectiveness, the hydroponic plant-growing system offered by the Biome Taiga incorporates several activated carbon air filters that help the plants absorb air pollution up to 200 times faster than plants grown in regular soil. The activated carbon provides a growing medium for the plants, but unlike regular soil, the porous surface of the carbon allows for much more common air contaminants to be captured. By designing a plant-based air purification system that can pull contaminated air through the roots of the plants, the microbiome on the plant roots is activated. It allows the plants to much more effectively get rid of indoor air pollution.
Tobias Roberts
Tobias runs an agroecology farm and a natural building collective in the mountains of El Salvador. He specializes in earthen construction methods and uses permaculture design methods to integrate structures into the sustainability of the landscape.