Church Eats Smog

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The New York Times has an article about titanium dioxide, a white pigment which, when into with building materials, has the effect of ‘eating’ pollution in the surrounding air. The pigment figures in the self-cleaning coating that has been applied to the 2003 Richard Meier church in Rome (more pictures here). I took a quick look at the website of Italcementi, the company that created the coating for the building and did all the cement work. They look massive and they seem to take sustainable development seriously (who knows if they actually do). It’s exciting to think of what could happen if titanium-dioxide caught on. It’s been in research since the 80s, and it seems to lose its potency after a while, but still — what if every house and car paint contained it?

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