ENN Editor. “Fighting air pollution with innovation and technology.” enn.com. Environmental News Network, 19 May 2014. Web. 25 May 2014. http://www.enn.com/wildlife/article/47403
Chemist Luigi Cassar has developed a cement coating that neutralizes air pollutants. Cassar’s coating dissolves in sunlight and helps preserve buildings from fading while improving the quality of the air that surrounds the coated concrete. The coating dissolves the air pollutants into smaller, less harmful elements and is designed to be washed away by rainwater. I think this is a really interesting development as far as improving air quality in major cities. I think there’s a lot of large cities that can use this new technology in order to clean their local environments, but I’m curious about the long term effects of using Cassar’s eco-friendly cement. I also have questions about how this coating actually works, is it a type of lacquer that can be placed onto existing concrete structures, or is it a type of cement on its own that needs to be used in the initial building phase of a structure? I think this is a great advancement as far as being concerned about air quality (China automatically comes to mind as an urban area that desperately needs cleaner air) but I also wonder about the potentially harmful effects the coating might have on the rainwater that’s going to wash away the coating. This development seems really promising and I’d like to know if this is going to be used in the US and how it will work and to what extent.
