FORTH Spinout Enhances Air Quality Inside and Out

Photo-Catalytic Nano Materials IKE (PCN materials) is a spin-off company of WAITRO member Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas (FORTH) based in Heraklion, Crete. Their products simultaneously address two global “megatrends” relevant to Sustainable Development Goal 3 (SDG3) “Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages” and SDG11 “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.”

The first megatrend affects our buildings, which are becoming more tightly sealed to improve energy efficiency by keeping heat where it is needed, either inside or outside depending on the season. Unfortunately, the current trend for tightly sealed buildings allows atmospheric contaminants to accumulate in the indoor spaces where (at least in developed countries) we tend to spend 90% of our time, and pollutants are two to five times more concentrated than outdoors. Chemicals like formaldehyde from construction materials and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from cleaning products that used to blow harmlessly away can now reach higher concentrations indoors and negatively affect our wellbeing.

The second megatrend is still at the front of minds in a world still recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic; the desire to keep surfaces free not just from viruses but also from bacteria, many of which are developing resistance to conventional antibiotics. This is also important in farming applications, where infectious viruses have severely impacted, for example, pig farmers in China. Not all surfaces can be continually disinfected by washing.

PCN materials addresses both these critical trends with a new material based on the well known principle of photo-catalysis; a process that performs chemistry using energy harvested from light. The material is based on titania, which has long been known to decompose organic molecules when exposed to light and oxygen. Previously, however, that light needed to be in the ultraviolet spectral region in order for the chemistry to be efficient. Such light is dangerous to both eyes and skin. The PCN materials incorporate subtle modifications that make such chemistry very efficient even when exposed to visible, ambient light. The materials therefore work indoors and in tunnels, requiring only diffuse sunlight or even artificial lighting in the visible spectrum.

The company was set up to target the global problem of pollution and bad indoor air quality, leveraging research results from more than 10 years’ work at FORTH. That research led to a series of patents on innovative photocatalytic (PC) materials that have been shown to degrade gaseous and liquid pollutants, purify waste, and disrupt polluting and toxic odors. Most importantly, the degradation products are benign. As a bonus, however, the same materials have been shown to degrade pathogenic organisms such as viruses and bacteria; a boon in areas where frequent washing may be difficult due to the scarcity of water. Hospital surfaces, for example, can be made bacteria-resistant without the use of yet more harsh chemicals or additional labor.

The PCN material has been painted not just on interior walls, but also in tunnels and has even been incorporated into cement products for construction. Once installed, it works continuously and silently whenever there is light, to improve the local air quality. Furthermore, because the process is catalytic, it never gets used up!

The company that has already developed commercial products for the construction industry in Greece, namely a PC wet paint for indoor, tunnels and underground parking lot applications as well as pavement tiles with enhanced depolluting performance. Currently, the materials are being used by one of the largest Greek road construction companies (OLYMPIA ODOS) to coat more 120,000 m² and 14 highway tunnels in the Patras-to-Pyrgos section of a new freeway in the Peloponnese region. In addition, a large reconstruction project by the Kamateros Municipality in the Athens area is under way with the application of pavement tiles at a total area of 20,000 m².