Innovation, research and product development services are just some of the skills and technologies in which our clients ask us to become involved.

Recently, we assisted a client in developing a new product for improving the quality of indoor air in both residential and commercial buildings.
People generally spend more than 80% of their time in an indoor environment and the quality of indoor air has a vital impact in human health. Today, buildings are designed to be air-tight to save energy, resulting in less fresh air intake and a general build up of pollutants from building materials in the indoor environment. This has resulted in increasing complaints by the occupants of sickness associated with these types of working environments. This phenomenon is known as sick building syndrome (SBS).

In general, there are three mitigation measures to reduce SBS, namely:

• source of control
• ventilation and
• air cleaning

The first two methods are usually difficult for the occupant to influence, as the source is unreachable and the ventilation is often ungovernable by building occupants. Thus, air cleaning is a feasible and convenient method for the individual occupant to improve indoor air quality.

New materials have been developed to control the release and the already released volatile organic compounds. The process helps chemical reactions to accelerate the decomposition of organic compounds, thus resulting in cleaner air and improved indoor air quality for the individual occupant.

The process uses photocatalysis, an emerging and promising technology for pollution remediation in the gaseous and aqueous phase.

If you need additional help in innovation, research or product development, then CETEC is able to offer an expert service. Using our combined resources with the University of Sydney staff, laboratories, and experience, we are able to probe materials for a variety of chemical, mechanical and physical properties and to develop understanding, optimisation and new approaches. Our laboratories make accessible unique knowledge, instrumentation and experimental capabilities for routine and non-routine applications.