Taking Clean Air to New Heights

Toyota recently deployed an eco-billboard campaign to promote the environmentally-friendly Mirai, a mid-size sedan that emits only water vapor and is one of the first cars equipped with a hydrogen fuel cell to be sold commercially.

According to press materials, the environmentally conscious billboard’s titanium-dioxide coating improves air purity; it was developed by PURETi Group (New York City).

Conducted in cooperation with Clear Channel Outdoor Americas, Toyota’s campaign will clean the air until May 28 using 37 billboards in the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas, with Toyota claiming that the eco-billboards will reverse “the equivalent of 5,285 vehicles’ worth of nitrogen dioxide emissions per month.”

How does it work? Nitrogen dioxide is converted into harmless nitrate in the presence of oxygen from the atmosphere; the process is catalyzed by titanium dioxide from the billboard. Vehicle emissions, per the Environmental Protection Agency, are among the primary contributors of nitrogen dioxide to the atmosphere.