Empirical nox removal analysis of photocatalytic construction materials at real-scale

Abstract

The NOx removal performance of photocatalytic construction materials is demonstrated using two experiments under indoor and outdoor environments: (1) A photoreactor test was conducted to assess the NO removal performance of construction materials (e.g., coatings, paints and shotcrete) using a modified ISO 22197-1 method; (2) A water washing test was conducted using two specimens enlarged to the size of actual building materials and artificially exposed to NOx in a laboratory to analyze NOx removal performance. For (1), the UV irradiation of the outdoor environment was analyzed and the experiment was conducted in an indoor laboratory under UV irradiation identical to that of the outdoor condition. Photoreactor tests were conducted on construction materials applied to actual buildings located in Seoul, South Korea. In (2), the enlarged specimen was used for a field experiment by applying a modified method from the ISO 22197-1 standard. On sunny days, the NOx removal performance (3.12–4.76 µmol/150 cm2·5 h) was twice as much as that of the ISO 22197-1 standard specification (2.03 µmol/150 cm2·5 h) in the real-world. The washing water test results indicated that general aqueous paint achieved a NOx removal of 3.88 µmol, whereas photocatalytic paint was superior to 14.13 µmol. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.