One of the photocatalytic characteristics checked is if they loose some kind of contaminant. This thing would become the photocatalytic material dangerous and pointless compared with the environmental damage. In order to control this hypothetical situation, one pit for each surface were built and the leachates inside them have been collected every time it has rained.
The common dirt in our sidewalks, pavements and roads are chewing gums from (filthy) people and grease from vehicles. In this project, besides the mentioned graffiti, gums and grease have been spread over the platforms to prove if the photocatalytic materials are able to remove them. In the photo below, they can be seen: the gum (small white circle on the left) and the grase (next […]
The removal of NOx test is the most typical test to know how powerful the photocatalytic material is. In LIFE Photoscaling project, it is pretended to scale from laboratory tests to real life surfaces. To do that, it was necessary to make a «in situ» meter available. So, this new meter was built, patented and used to perform every «in situ» test.
In addition to the measuring of NOx degradation, in LIFE Photoscaling project, these contaminants and other ones are constantly measured by using two types of meters: The first one (in the left of the picture) reveals the live concentration of NO, NO2, O3 and, moreover, relative humidity and temperature (both also registered by weather stations). The second one (in the right of the picture) keeps a […]
Photocatalytic process depends on weather conditions, specially sun radiation and atmospheric humidity. In order to collect these data and be able to compare with the results of the degradation of pollution, two weather stations have been placed at the photocatalytic slabs. The first weather station is located in IETcc – CSIC (Madrid). The second one has been placed in IETcc – CSIC (Arganda del […]
A huge amount of test will be proven in all of these photocatalytic materials. One of them is the self-cleaning test, but, this time, materials will clean (or not) graffiti painting instead of rhodamine, commonly used. Some initial photographs:
The two photocatalytic platforms on a pilot plant technical scale have been constructed. Each photocatalytic platform consists of several banks of proofs containing sets of slabs of photocatalytically active materials. Following, few images of these platforms can be seen. Part of finished the Platform 1 (Madrid) Part of the finished Platform 2 (Arganda del Rey)
Today, the material spread has been Coverlite from Impresa Bacchi. This is the third and last material of the emulsion coatings group. The surfaces used to spread on the material have been asphalt as well as Madrid paving tiles.
At least, the last product from the emulsion coatings group, PHOTOSOUND from Active Walls, is in its corresponding position. It has been spreading, as the other products from the same group, by using a pressured spray with an attached tank. The layers where the material has been sprayed on are both asphalt and Madrid paving tiles.
The first cementitious slurry spread succesfully today. This time, the product has been CARGO from Financiera y Minera. The consistency of this material has been checked before starting the spreading job.
