Italians Unleash Smog-Eating Cement
Revolutionary Product Can Reduce Pollution By Over 60 Percent

An Italian company is releasing a revolutionary 'smog-eating' cement product capable of reducing urban pollution by over 40 percent.

After 10 years of research, development and testing, the firm, Italcementi, is putting TX Active on the market. It can be applied to road surfaces or building exteriors.

This cement-based compound has a special chemical composition that enables it to absorb pollutants produced by cars, factories, household heating and city life in general.

Italcementi claims the product has massive potential for major cities struggling with smog, the cause of a range of ailments - some fatal.

Tests on a busy road in the town of Segrate, near Milan, for example, showed it slashed the levels of key pollutants like nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide by 40-65 percent.

Italcementi said TX Active, whose effectiveness has been verified by independent bodies like the National Research Council (CNR), will first go on sale at a price of one euro a kilo in Italy. It will then be marketed all over the world. "It is a product with enormous potential, and it has already stirred the interest of the Rome and Milan city councils," said Italcementi Director Carlo Pesenti.

"We feel it is part of a major company's mission to respond to the need to improve the quality of life of all of us. "We believe that, with this product, we can provide solutions, at least in part, to the problems highlighted every day about air quality in our cities." TX Active is made with a special compound that absorbs harmful pollutants and transforms them into non-toxic gases, which it then releases.

Nitrogen dioxide and sodium dioxide, for example, are turned into calcium nitrate and sodium nitrate - gases that are present in nature and, in small quantities, are completely harmless. Other car exhaust fumes get transformed into carbon dioxide.

It functions via a chemical process called photo catalysis, which Italcementi experts compared to photosynthesis in nature. Sunlight triggers a chemical reaction when titanium dioxide on the surface of the cement comes into contact with pollutants in the air.

For this reason, the cement works hardest in summer, when a greater quantity of bright sunlight amplifies its smog-eating qualities.

The cement works fast. Nitrogen dioxide clouds left by cars traveling along the Segrate Street vanished, on average, five seconds after the vehicle passed by. On roads without the surface the main concentration of the gas takes about 30 seconds to break down, while much of the nitrogen dioxide hangs in the air for several minutes.

As well as its ecological properties, the cement has one other major advantage - its color doesn't fade.

Because the substance contains chemicals that interact with ultraviolet light, its color is refreshed whenever the sun comes out.

It has already been used on a number of buildings, including Air France's new headquarters at Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport, Rome's Dives in Misericordia church and Bordeaux's Hotel de Police. Italcementi should have no shortage of orders in car-congested Italy. Italian cities frequently have to impose emergency traffic restrictions in their town centers when pollution levels get particularly high.