Julie Hail Flory | October 5, 2016
Every time a taxi makes a short trip from the Notre Dame campus to Eddy Street Commons, it drops off more than just passengers; it also leaves behind a tiny amount of pollution that lingers in the air, sometimes for years. Multiply that by the thousands of such rides that happen during any given academic year, and the cumulative effect is significant.
Freshman Jake Drysdale wants to do something about that. The 18-year-old from St. Louis brought something a little unusual with him to South Bend for his first year — prototypes for nanocoated banner signs that actually clean the air in their vicinity.
The nanocoating technology accelerates the process that breaks down pollutants to fractions of a second, rather than years, decades or even centuries. He estimates that hanging 100 of these signs in the parking lots around Notre Dame Stadium would offset the environmental impact of the equivalent of more than 80,000 cab rides a year from the Notre Dame Avenue circle to Eddy Street, about three-tenths of a mile.