Roof Tiles That Clean Air Developed By Chemical Engineers From UC Riverside

Imagine a good old house with roof tiles that help keeps the air around it safe to breath. A team of engineers from Bourns College of Engineering at University of California have been successful in doing just that. They have created a coating of titanium dioxide mixture that can be applied to any roof to reduce the amount of nitrogen oxide in air by 88-97%, which is responsible for creating smog (smoke+fog). Their experiments have shown that this new roof tile coating is capable of eliminating 21 tons of nitrogen oxide on a daily basis, if one million roofs were coated with it.

As per the calculations, the cost of coating the mixture is just $5 for an average-sized residential roof. The roof tiles available in market today do help in reducing pollution, but are not said to be effective against smog. Therefore, in their experiments, the chemical engineers at UC Riverside coated two identical clay tiles with different amounts of titanium dioxide and placed them inside a miniature atmospheric chamber built out of wood, Teflon and PVC piping. This chamber was connected to a source of nitrogen oxides and a device that reads concentrations of nitrogen oxides. Using UV light to simulate sunlight, the titanium dioxide could break down the nitrogen oxides.

roof-tiles-cleaning-air
At left, two tiles coated with the titanium dioxide mixture. At right, uncoated tiles. At top, a commercially available tile with titanium dioxide.
The engineering students are now looking forward to see the effects of their titanium dioxide mixture when mixed with exterior paints as well as concrete, walls or dividers along freeways. The questions such as - how long the coating will last and what impact changing the color of coating would have - still linger on.

What are your thoughts on the new roof tile coating? Share with us in comments.

Source: #-Link-Snipped-#

Replies

  • premchem01
    premchem01
    did any of you guys know the mixture combination? I mean in which solvent the TiO2 particles got dispered? and weight percent ? any additional info would be great
    thnk you
  • Mohideen Ibramsha
    Mohideen Ibramsha
    I appreciate the innovation. I am concerned about the negative impact of this invention on human life. Artificial fertilizers used in agriculture release NO2. It would be better to avoid activities that release NO2 so that the atmosphere could be cleaned.

    My worry is the lobbyists of those industries whose products cause increase of NO2 in the atmosphere would produce products to remove NO2 from the air. I suggest one such product now: A box that has a UV light under which the tile absorbs NO2; the tiles are so arranged that the UV light shines on the tiles. We add a blower that forces the air to hit these tiles and go out. As the tiles absorb the NO2 the air gets cleaner!

    What happens to these tiles after they had absorbed the NO2? How are they disposed? How do they behave after a number of years?

    CCA was patented in 1934 and was used extensively to protect timber from termites and other pests.
    Chromated Copper Arsenate

    Now in 2004 the use of CCA treated wood was withdrawn from domestic use.
    #-Link-Snipped-#
    ===
    Human health, food safety, and environmental concerns regarding the use of treated wood in general, and CCA-treated in particular, have developed in recent years. The wood treating industry has voluntarily withdrawn CCA-treated lumber intended for use in the more common residential applications, although it will still be available for industrial uses. This withdrawal took place effective January 2004.
    ===

    It has taken about 70 years to avoid using an innovation.

    May I request researchers to look into the aspects of disposing off the NO2 soaked tiles now?

You are reading an archived discussion.

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