TECHNICAL
Evergreens (UK) to use revolutionary air purification technology in artificial grass
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n a global marketplace forecast to be worth £4.2b by 2023*, Accredited Supplier Evergreens (UK) has written to Landscape News to announce, what it calls, a revolutionary air purification Artificial Grass range - introducing AIR™.
Mature trees play a vital role in tackling the issue of airborne pollution, their foliage providing absorption and purification. Speaking to Evergreens (UK), they have developed a new solution: AIR™ from ArtificialGrass.com, which launches this spring. With every square metre replicating the air purifying skills of a mature tree, an average size AIR™ treated lawn can pack the same pollution-busting punches as 50 mature trees. One average lawn can contend with over 1kg of nitrogen oxide per year, neutralising the equivalent of a car engine’s emissions running 20km a day for a whole year.
How does it work?
Activated by sunlight, AIR™ artificial grass, pre-treated in its production process with AIR™ technology powered by Pureti, helps remove nitrogen oxides and dioxides from harmful car emissions and industrial output. Its eco-friendly, air-purifying, self-cleaning
solution combats methane build-up from animal excretions and household emissions such as formaldehyde, present in cleaning products, cosmetics and pesticides.
AIR™ technology
When UV or direct sunlight strikes the treated surface, it activates selfcleaning photocatalytic TiO2 particles. The artificial grass then uses this energy to transform humidity into powerful oxidizing agents that destroy harmful organic compounds and pollutants in the air, naturally returning them to harmless water vapour. This process repeats millions of times per second, destroying pollutants and allowing cleaner air to continuously circulate across the treated surface. On hearing this news, our Technical Officer, Owen Baker, investigated titanium dioxide, reporting, “Titanium is a metal commonly found in plants and animals. Similarly, titanium dioxide is a naturally occurring mineral which has many useful properties. In the 1960s researchers discovered that, under intense UV light, a variant of titanium dioxide has the potential to decompose inorganic materials into
carbon dioxide. A development of this research resulted in titanium dioxide being used in catalyst devices on cars to remove pollutants from engine exhaust gas emissions, as well as on exhaust gases of power stations. In recent years research has focussed on the potential of titanium dioxide to be used more widely on surfaces, where – under UV light – it has the potential to serve as a coating on urban buildings to decompose pollutants and allow the surface of the building to self-clean.
By 2000 research started investigating the potential of titanium dioxide to be used as a means of purifying air in urban areas by coating concrete paving blocks with it, with the intention of reduce the concentration of nitrogen dioxide – a harmful airborne pollutant – from the environment to benefit human health.
Controlled conditions in laboratory tests gave positive results and proved the technology has the potential to contribute to a reduction in airborne pollutants, however, implementation of the technology in urban areas resulted in several variables, including exposure to abrasion, contaminants on the surface and a lack of consistent UV light.
Research proves the potential of the technology in the fight against pollution, but the variability of real-life applications has limited adoption so far and here at the British Association of Landscape Industries we are looking forward to seeing how this particular product is developed.” For more information visit artificialgrass.com/air. You can also contact the team on +44(0)800 246 5566.
*UpMarketResearch Report: Published November 2019 - Artificial Grass Turf Market Size, Share, Trends, Growth, Forecast Analysis Report by Product, By Application, By Segment, By Region Global Forecast 2018-2023 .
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LANDSCAPE NEWS SPRING 2021
