In the United States there are 46,837 miles of highways with miles of sound barrier walls being erected daily to mitigate the negative impacts of highway systems on urban neighborhoods. At the same time, these transportation systems alone produce 1.4 billion tons of airborne pollution annually. With the increasing prominence of this additional component to our highway infrastructure, the public is beginning to demand a more appealing design solution to highway-generated air, sound, and light pollution.
In addition to mitigating sound and light pollution as present highway barrier systems do, the Superabsorber system also absorbs airborne pollutants. Designed by Douglas Hecker and Martha Skinner of Clemson-based FieldOffice, this innovative system has the potential to significantly reduce airborne pollution in urban areas with the application of photocatalytic cement products that have been demonstrated to reduce air pollution in urban areas by 50% when covering just 15% of urban surfaces. The inclusion of this surface application on future concrete barrier systems represents a significant amount of surface area for absorption of air pollution in urban areas.
Contact: fieldoffice, Clemson, SC.
Find more information in Transmaterial 2.
nice stuff. I think the potential for increasing property values next to noise sources may justify the expense. Any feasibility studies done on this yet?
Thanks Nick. We are in the beginning stages on this project but are getting a lot of interest.
This is great. I would like to know where you go with this product, how it is installed, etc. I live in a beautiful area in west Michigan which is plagued by the toxic sound effects of a nearby highway and have often thought of how we could solve this problem. I agree with the first comment re: property values.
Where can we get more information on this great product? I have a state highway department that could use this through the core urban area, yesterday!
UV-PCO or Photocatalytic TiO2 is a 40 year old, green, clean technology that is just hitting its stride. There is an American manufacturer named PURETi that goes beyond mixed in powders to produce water based, photocatalytic surface treatments that are misted on to cement or windows or cool roofs or solar panels to create self-cleaning and air purifying surfaces that require less light and last and work for year after sustainable year with one cost effective application.
If it cleans the pollutants out of the air by absorbing them into this substance wouldn’t this create a concentrated area of these same pollutants on these sound barrier walls? If so wouldn’t this be worse than the pollutants in the air that aren’t as concentrated, some eventually leaving the area instead of being concentrated on the barriers? This would be a great product if the pollutants are neutralized as they are absorbed.