Spain. The Group of Environmental Inorganic Chemistry and Ceramic Materials of the Universitat Jaume I de Castelló has developed a research project for the valorization, transfer and exploitation of cooling pigments (cooling pigments) and photocatalytic scheelite base that serve to reduce the temperature of buildings and also to absorb part of the environmental pollution.
The research staff has carried out during the last months tests of the effectiveness of the pigments on the roof of the building of the Higher School of Technology and Experimental Sciences of the UJI, with the funding of the Valencian Agency of Innovation (AVI), in which they have been able to observe that the photocatalytic pigments used were able to reduce air pollution by about 20%, especially nitrogen oxides (NOx), volatile organic compounds (VOCs) or carbon monoxide (CO).
The team has also tested refreshing pigments that exhibit high infrared reflectance, rejecting infrared radiation rays from buildings and lowering the surface temperature by about three degrees, avoiding the effect of the urban heat island, which is when the dark surfaces of envelopes and asphalted cities absorb the sun's energy and then release it slowly, causing the temperature of urban areas to be higher than that of their surroundings and also increasing the probability of formation of smogs (polluting clouds).
The project has been developed by researchers Guillermo Monrós, Vicente Esteve and Mario Llusar with the collaboration of Arnau Monrós and Sara Cerro from the Department of Inorganic and Organic Chemistry of the public university of Castelló.
Source: Universitat Jaume I de Castelló
