Whiter Than White

2024 Author: David Durham | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-09 00:51

Richard Mayer's construction, also called the "Church of the Jubilee", was timed to coincide with the 2000th anniversary of Christianity, which was celebrated in 2000. The main sponsor of the construction was the Italian building materials manufacturer Italcementi Group. To ensure that the snow-white concrete "sails" of the new church do not require frequent cleaning, the specialists of this company used their new development - a white self-cleaning wall covering. Unbeknownst to them at the time, because of the titanium dioxide content, a white pigment, this plaster dye absorbs exhaust fumes and other constituents of city smog.

This compound is used in similar paints and primers, because it has the properties of a photocatalyst: in sunlight, it speeds up the oxidation reaction many times. At the same time, not only the soot on the wall surface is cleared, but also the air around it.

This discovery raised the question of the widespread use of such materials in urban construction. According to research, the air at a distance of 2.5 m from the facade, covered with paint with titanium dioxide, contains 70% less various combustion products than the average in the city. That is, pedestrians inhale less harmful substances when they pass by buildings that have been treated in this way.

Options for using photocatalytic cement for paving asphalt roads are also being considered. As an experiment, it was used on a 300-meter stretch of highway near Milan. Measurements showed that with an average traffic load of 1000 cars per hour, the decrease in the content of nitrogen oxides in the air at ground level was 60%.

Some experts were skeptical about the discovery of Italcementi employees: in their opinion, it is necessary to reduce the level of emissions of harmful substances, and not to destroy their result - smog. In addition, almost all catalysts tend to lose their effectiveness over time.

While scientists are solving this problem, we can only admire the snow-white walls of the Church of Dio Padre Misericordioso, sparkling in comparison with the seams between concrete slabs that were not covered with titanium soil.