I have an air purifier and I love plants - what an awesome idea to combine the two. Plants are natural air cleaners. Makes perfect sense.

Plants are known to be nature's natural air purifiers for removing airborne contaminants, toxins and other harmful indoor irritants, but it's the 21st century now. I think we could be pushing these potted plant air purification technologies even further!

The cool new Bel-Air - Plant Powered Living Air Filter is a mini mobile greenhouse concept by French designer Mathieu Lehanneur in collaboration with David Edwards of Harvard University. Based on actual NASA research, they invented a truly unique device that draws indoor polluted air in through a fan, into a pyrex pod that houses a potted plant like a gerbera, philodendron, spathiophyllum, pathos or chlorophytum and forces it through the three main natural filters of the leaves, the roots, and the humidity before releasing it back out as purified air. Your regular old decorative house or office plant does this already, but it's capable of handling and processing much more and this unit really helps to accelerate that process along.

It's a cool idea and I really love the futuristic modern design, but I hope in future models they implement solar-powered fans since the plant is going to need sunlight anyways. It's an interesting start and best of all, you'll never need to replace any expensive air filters again! (via The Green Head)