Air-Cleaning Paint
July 29th, 2005
CNN has an article about painting buildings with titanium oxide in order to chemically break down nitrous oxides and other pollution molecules. Currently the technology is employed for its “self-cleaning” properties (such as on this church in Rome), where the titanium oxide painting keeps it shiny and white. The biggest questions are the issues of scale and cost: is there enough surface area to actually combat our pollution levels, and is it worth the extra money? Although I’m also wondering if we want cities full of blindingly white shiny buildings. I might need a new pair of sunglasses.
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July 29th, 2005 at 11:49 am
kind of reminds me of a mix of our previous self cleaning glass post and buildings that use pollution to get them to turn colors à la Statue of Liberty.
It would be pretty awesome if you could just have buildings eating up pollution like trees eat up CO2 placed all over a city, but I kinda have a feeling that this “self-cleaning” building will keep only the building itself clean. But if anyone else wants to design the other type of building with me….
July 29th, 2005 at 1:28 pm
I’m excited about new green materials and innovating towards a more sustainable world, however, I fear that hype can stifle progress by over promising and under-delivering.
At first glance, this technology comes as bit of a surprise because TiO2 isn’t exactly a new material innovation. It was developed decades ago and has since been widely used as the white pigment in paints, coatings, and even toothpaste and sun block. Link
David Gorin (UC Berkeley Chemistry PhD candidate) and I spoke briefly with a gentleman at the UN sponsored World Environment Day in San Francisco about Titanium Dioxide coatings and had concerns about its true effectiveness. Dave, can you comment?
December 22nd, 2009 at 8:34 pm
In regard to air cleaning paint check this article on the largest air cleaning paint trial in the world and the paint company that launch it
http://www.marriageandbeyond.com/.../world’s-largest-air-cleaning-paint-trial-shows-that-boysen-knoxout-lowers-air-pollution/
http://www.knoxoutpaints.com