New Holistic Conceptual Framework for the Assessment of the Performance of Photocatalytic Pavement.

Despite serious health and environmental burdens associated with air pollution by NO, the emission ceilings have been systematically exceeded in big European cities for several years. Photocatalytic technology can be an efficient solution for the removal of chemical air pollutants. Because diesel engine exhaust is the main source of NO emissions, the application of a photocatalyst onto road pavement appears to be an effective NO abatement method due to the large surface area, proximity to the emission source, and relatively good solar irradiance.

Risk-Informed Requirements for Design and Assessment of Structures Under Temporary Use.

The relatively high failure rates, with important consequences in many cases, suggest that the implicitly acceptable risk levels corresponding to temporary civil engineering structures and activities might exceed the bounds of normally acceptable levels associated with different societal activities. Among other reasons, this may be attributed to the lack of a rational approach for the assessment of risks associated with the different technologies supporting these activities in general, and for structures in particular. There is a need for establishing appropriate target reliability levels for structures under temporary use taking into account specific circumstances such as reduced risk exposure times.

In situ evaluation of the NO removal efficiency of photocatalytic pavements: statistical analysis of the relevance of exposure time and environmental variables.

In the recent past, the NO removal efficiency of photocatalytic materials has been subject of many studies with promising results. However, many of these studies involve laboratory tests carried out under standardized climatic exposure conditions, often not representative of the real-world environment. With the aim to bridge this gap, selected photocatalytic materials have been applied to different substrates in outdoor demonstrator platforms at pilot scale as part of the project LIFE-PHOTOSCALING.