Sustainable self-cleaning treatments for architectural facades in developing countries

Abstract

Air pollution is one of the most significant factors deteriorating the buildings facades in most high-density urban contexts. A valid solution for decreasing the effect of this deterioration is to apply a self-cleaning material mixed with the paints of the building facades in the polluted areas. Instead of repainting the whole building elevation, application of self-cleaning material is becoming more practical to maintain cleaner facades for longer period of time. Titanium dioxide is considered one of materials that has a high photo-catalytic activates when illuminated with UV light. This paper demonstrated the ability of TiO2-paint mixture for self-cleaning for organic pollutants. Three types of paints were mixed with TiO2 and the mixtures were coated on flat Styrofoam sheets. Coated sheets were covered with black smock from burned tire tubes. After exposing these sheets to waterfall and UV sunlight, TiO2 oxidized most of the pollutant that covered the flat sheet. TiO2-paint mixture showed a good property of attracting water and acted as a hydrophilic material. Accordingly, adding traces of TiO2, while painting building facades, can be considered as a sustainable economic method for pollution reduction especially in the developing countries.