Trouble on Earth: Smog-eating pavements could absorb pollution

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Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Smog-eating pavements could absorb pollution

Scientists in the Netherlands say they have invented a pavement which they claim can absorb pollution.

They believe the technology could help to reduce the environmental impact of cars and lorries worldwide.

Researchers say that the pavement can reduce pollution by up to 19% in an average day.

Scientists in China, South Africa and the United States have said they're interested in this new technology.

The news was published online in June after researchers working for the Eindhoven University of Technology spent years studying smog-eating pavement used on a city block in Hengelo, Netherlands.

According to the paper titled "Full scale demonstration of air-purifying pavement,"the block with the special pavement reduced nitrogen oxide air pollution up to 45 percent in some ideal weather conditions, resulting in an average reduction of 19 percent over a day.

The "photocatalytic" pavement used in Hengelo had been sprayed with titanium oxide (TiO2), a chemical that can take air pollutants, such as nitrogen oxide, and convert them into less-dangerous chemicals, such as nitrates, the paper's authors report.

In a 2010 interview concerning the Hengelo experiment, professor Jos Brouwers of the Department of Architecture, Building and Planning at Eindhoven told CNN the pavement's real-life applications were exciting.

"[The concrete] could be a very feasible solution for inner city areas where they have a problem with air pollution," Brouwers said.

This could be good news for urban areas with high automobile traffic such as Los Angeles. (In a poll conducted by the Los Angeles Times close to 70 percent of respondents said they felt similar streets could be coming to Southern California.)

The research dovetails nicely with an American version of the pavement installed in bicycle and parking lanes in Chicago in April, according to the Agence France-Presse.

The AFP notes that titanium dioxide pavement is more expensive that average

cement, which is why it is only be used in a limited capacity at the moment. But Janet Attarian, project manager for the Chicago plan, explained that the cumulative effect of the city's innovations is the key takeaway.

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