Advertising banners rarely add any value to the aesthetic of urban areas, and even less so to residents’ health. But that doesn’t necessarily stand for the Spanish city of Bilbao, where a museum has recently unveiled a project that wants to help purify the city’s air through its outdoor advertising campaigns.
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao has kickstarted the initiative by treating its outdoor advertising campaigns with Pureti® Print – a material that turns the banners into active air purifiers.
Developed in collaboration with NASA and certified by different international laboratories, the technology uses the scientific basis of photocatalysis – a chemical reaction triggered by sunlight that turns oxygen and water vapor in the air into cleaning agents of pollutants such as NOx, SOx, or VOC’s, as well as bacteria, mold, and bad odors
The revolutionary coating can be found on the large banner announcing the exhibitions on the museum’s façade, the ones found along the city’s lampposts and on a tram which is entirely covered with advertising vinyl.
Currently, the impact of this outdoor advertising campaign could be equivalent to the air purifying effect of over 700 trees.
Pureti® Print is part of the European project iSCAPE, conceived to respond to the most important challenges that Europe will need to face in the future, with measures such as the development of actions to improve air quality and reduce pollution.
