Self-cleaning measurements on tiles manufactured with micro-sized photoactive TiO2

Heterogeneous photocatalysis is a rapidly developing field in environmental engineering. It has a great potential to cope with the increasing pollution in the air. The addition of a photocatalyst to ordinary building materials such as tiles, concrete, paints, creates environmental friendly materials by which air pollution or pollution of the surface itself can be controlled and diminished. This work presents an overview of the principle of photocatalysis, as well as the results of the laboratory research, especially towards air purifying action and self-cleaning measurements. In particular the research is focused on the study of photocatalytic behavior of tiles (named Active) prepared starting from commercial micro-sized TiO2 [Bianchi (2012)]. Air purification action is investigated through NOx degradation tests. On the contrary, the degradation of pollution at the surface, also called as self-cleaning action, is verified by the degradation of both acid oleic (ISO 27448-1 [1]) and three different dyes: Rhodamine B (red color), Methylene blue (blue) and Metanil yellow (yellow).