A Reactive Coating for Air Purification

This SBIR Phase I project addresses development of a self-cleaning coating for removing air-borne chemical and biological species. The coating materials possess impressive properties e.g., ambient temperature adsorptive and low temperature thermal catalytic oxidation activity towards VOCs; electrochemical activity for hydrocarbon oxidation, and oxygen evolution. Evidence of photocatalytic activity of these materials has also been obtained. These multifunctional metal oxides demonstrate exceptional deep oxidation activity for organic species at low temperature and contain constituents that are individually photoactive. During this Phase I these materials will be rendered into forms possessing superior solid state and photocatalytic features. Currently, chemical and biological agents are removed from air using technologies based on adsorptive filters. However, these methods do not destroy impurities and present waste disposal problems. Other measures require unacceptable heat load, space, energy consumption, or a multiplicity of control devices. Thus, the proposed coating reactive systems potentially has value for cost effectively removing low concentrations of gas phase species (e.g., chemical agents, TICs, and other small molecules) and microbes. The ambient temperature capability of the coatings, tolerance to perturbations, and self-cleaning features will ensure their usefulness.