The air quality issue in California has been in the news for the past several weeks due to the raging wildfires in the northern and southern regions of the state. Clouds of ash and smog that have engulfed the entire area are creating high toxicity levels in the atmosphere, all over California.
Smog is a mixture of various pollutants in the air that originate mostly from the burning of fossil fuel. Nitrogen oxide released by fossil fuel combustion reacts with the sunlight to produce smog. It leads to potential health complications in people with severe medical conditions and is a major cause for premature deaths worldwide.
However, the latest innovation in roofing technology solutions has led to the development of roofing materials that can help control air pollution to some extent. Smog-reducing roofing granules, cool-roofing materials, and titanium dioxide roof tiles are a few examples of residential roofing that help in removing smog from the air. These products are like guiding forces to help roofing manufacturers create high quality, aesthetically pleasing, and innovative shingles that can actively reduce air pollution.
The recently introduced smog-reducing roofing materials can be applied to your roofing shingles to address the issues of air pollution and contribute to healthier surroundings.
The specialized photocatalytic coating of these smog-reducing roofing granules helps eliminate nitrogen oxide or NOx and improves the air we breathe. When the granules get exposed to the sun’s ultraviolet rays, “radicals” are produced that break down nitrogen oxide in the smog particles into a water-soluble substance that can easily get washed away with rain instead of contaminating the air. This offers a smart solution to mitigate air pollution, and helps in reducing the NOx emission. It has been discovered that a regular-sized roof treated with these granules, eliminates around as much atmospheric pollution as three trees.
Latest studies have revealed that titanium dioxide roof tiles help disintegrate NOx and remove it from the air. The studies have projected that an area comprising of one million roofs coated with titanium dioxide could eliminate around 21 tons of nitrogen oxide each day. Individual roof tiles were shown to strip off at least 88% of the surroundings NOx in the atmosphere, and a single roof could eliminate the matching pollution of a car driving 11,000 miles per year.
Environmental Scientists recommend the use of cool roofing substances to decrease air pollution and energy costs and to fight climate change. Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have reported that switching to cool roofs would make the atmosphere abundantly cool to balance the heating caused by almost 40 million metric tons of discharged CO2, in some cases.
The smog-reducing roofing materials remove air pollutants, which is beneficial to everyone’s health. However, complete cleaning up of the air necessitates decreasing dependency on fossil fuels that produce smog upon burning.
Also Read: 4 Types of Roofing Materials Best Suited for Storm Prone Areas
