It flies, it flaps, it cleans…it’s a poem
It could be the biggest breakthrough in the fight against pollution since the 1956 Clean Air Act ended London’s pea-souper fogs.
Monday, 07 Jul 2014 13:06 GMT
Poetic idea: the banner uses microscopic pollution-eating particles of titanium dioxide to cleanse the atmosphere and is celebrated with a poem by Simon Armitage
A new material used in flags and soft signage has been created that cleans the air. The remarkable material has been developed in a collaboration between Northern Flags and the University of Sheffield. The project has manufactured a massive banner on a building on the campus.
The banner has been made using catalytic technology developed by the university’s Professor Tony Ryan and the final banner features a poem written by the university’s Simon Armitage who is known for his poems, books, and television and radio programmes on poetry.
The banner's applications are clearly endless, from helping to clean up the London Underground in the form of directional soft signage or traffic pollution in city centres”
After a series of tests, the 20m-high banner has been printed utilising dye sublimation techniques on a specially selected fabric to allow the absorption of catalytic chemicals.
It contains microscopic pollution-eating particles of titanium dioxide, which, after coming into contact with nitrogen oxides in the atmosphere, react with these pollutants to purify the air.
The green banner can also be recycled after use. Its applications are clearly endless, from helping to clean up the London Underground in the form of directional soft signage or traffic pollution in city centres.
This poem on the banner written by Simon Armitage begins:
I write in praise of air. I was six or five
when a conjurer opened my knotted fist
and I held in my palm the whole of the sky.
I’ve carried it with me ever since.
