technology blogs: Jodi Summers = Green Real Estate ? BRAVE NEW WORLD = SMOG-EATING ...

Monday, August 22, 2011

Jodi Summers = Green Real Estate ? BRAVE NEW WORLD = SMOG-EATING ...

August 20, 2011 on 12:51 am | In Curious, Green Building, Greenhouse Gas, Solutions, Uncategorized | No Comments

By Jodi Summers

Science fiction or reality -> A skyscraper that devours the smog around it? Reality. Alcoa has launched a coil-coated architectural panel that helps clean itself and the air around it.

Scientists have identified two unique effects of titanium dioxide ? ?a common compound that is used in products as diverse as quick-setting concrete, tile grout and even suntan lotion.

1-????? When exposed to sunlight, titanium dioxide acts as a catalyst to break down organic matter.

2-????? While titanium dioxide breaks down organic matter, it creates a superhydrophilic (water-loving) surface.

Now, Alcoa Architectural Products has developed a proprietary, patent-pending process that leverages HYDROTECT? technology from TOTO? to apply a titanium dioxide coating, called EcoClean?, to the pre-painted aluminum surface of Reynobond?. The result is the world?s first coil-coated aluminum architectural panel that helps clean itself and the air around it.

Called ?Reynobond with EcoClean,? the patented HYDROTECT? technology protects our planet by drawing on sunlight, rainwater and other natural forces to help cleanse the global environment. Alcoa?s breakthrough was determining how to apply that technology to pre-painted metal ? creating the EcoClean? coating.

Alcoa says the panels reduce maintenance costs and helps decompose smog and other pollutants in the air that cling to building surfaces, from dirt to diesel fumes. As a photocatalyst, titanium dioxide interacts with sunlight to break down organic matter both on and floating around the surface of the building panels, leaving the organic matter sitting on the surface of the Reynobond? panel, ready to be washed away. When it rains, water doesn?t bead on the surface. Instead, it collapses and runs evenly off the building, taking most of the broken down pollutants with it. That means lower maintenance costs for owners, and a consistently cleaner image for the building over time.

How effective is the technology? About 10,000 square feet of the panels can clean the air as well as 80 medium-sized deciduous trees, Alcoa says. It?s enough to offset four cars each day.

Smog-choked Los Angeles could breathe a bit easier with this green building technology. ?Times Square will glimmer a little brighter. Downtown skyscrapers wouldn?t need to hire window cleaners to keep floor-to-ceiling windows transparent.

At the core of the concept is a proprietary process that takes Toto?s patented Hydrotect technology ? which helps keep microbes at bay on that company?s toilets, bath tubs and other bathroom fixtures ? and applies it to a hydrophilic titanium dioxide coating on the pre-painted aluminum surface of a Reynobond panel.

Reynobond? with EcoClean? actively works to remove pollutants by using sunlight, water vapor, and oxygen in the air to clean the air itself. In fact, 1,000 sqm / 10,000 sq ft? of Reynobond? with EcoClean? on your building can have approximately enough cleansing power to offset the smog created by the pollution output of four cars every day, which is the approximate air cleansing power of 80 trees every day.

The result: an aluminum panel that, in the presence of sunlight, acts as a catalyst to break down organic pollutants on its surface and in the air around it. Once broken down, rainwater simply rinses them away.