Abstract
The sustainable development of our societies demands strong efforts on scientific and technological research while informing and educating students and the general population. Air pollution and road safety hazards constitute two main public health problems that are insufficiently addressed pedagogically. With this work, we aim to contribute to tackeling the problem by presenting the results of scientific research on the development of photocatalytic, superhydrophobic, and self-cleaning recycled asphalt mixtures to achieve an eco-social friendly and smart material able to mitigate socioenvironmental impacts. The functionalization of asphalt is implemented by spraying particles’ solutions over a conventional AC 10, then evaluated by dye degradation and wettability. Firstly, different particles’ solutions (with nano-TiO2 and/or micro-PTFE under water, ethyl alcohol, and dimethyl ketone) were sprayed to select the best solution (BS), which was composed of TiO2-PTFE (4 g/L each) in ethyl alcohol. Two successive spraying coatings (diluted epoxy resin and BS) were performed over conventional and recycled AC 10 (with reclaimed asphalt pavement and steel slags). Their efficiency decreases with the highest resin amounts. The best results were obtained with 0.25 g resin and BS. For the lowest resin amount, all mixtures achieved superhydrophobicity and performed similarly regarding wettability.
Highlights
Air pollution is one of the main environmental problems, due to its effects in diverse domains, for example, the consequences for human health (pulmonary obstructions, lung cancer, cardiovascular disease (CVD), among others), the intensification of the greenhouse effect and the occurrence of acid rains
Raising awareness and educating students, as well as the general population, on environment sustainability issues, including the state-of-the art ones that we address in this paper, requires teachers and educators to have a sound scientific and technical knowledge on such advanced topics, in order to increase the effectiveness of science and technology education and the establishment of a sound scientific literacy on sustainability
A global examination of the results reveals that samples only with PTFE
Summary
Air pollution is one of the main environmental problems, due to its effects in diverse domains, for example, the consequences for human health (pulmonary obstructions, lung cancer, cardiovascular disease (CVD), among others), the intensification of the greenhouse effect and the occurrence of acid rains. Sustainability 2022, 14, 573 pollutants exceeds the maximum limits, causing more than 4 million premature deaths, while nine out of ten breathe very polluted air [1]. Some of the main air pollutants are fine particulate matter, nitrogen oxides (NOx ), nitric oxide (NO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2 ), and SOx , compounds of sulfur and oxygen molecules [2,3,4]. Sulfur dioxide (SO2 ) is the predominant SOx form found in the lower atmosphere [1]. Both gases are produced in motor vehicles and industrial processes
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