Team : Géraldine Durand, Alan Taylor, Aurelie Rexach ... · PDF fileInsulation Material and Solution of ... ideal thickness for the insulating blanket is of course ... • The partners

Copyright©HIPIN 2014

Synthesis of a high silicon content material and its use

as raw material for new insulating material

for the construction industry.

Team : Géraldine Durand, Alan Taylor, Aurelie Rexach & Shivashankari

Sundaram


• Aerogels can be 99% air and 1,000 times less dense than glass.

• They are essentially the solid framework of a dry gel.

• A class of porous, solid materials that exhibit extreme material properties

• AKA Frozen smoke

What are Aerogels?


Properties of Silica Aerogels

Records held by some specially-formulated silica aerogels:

• Lowest density solid (0.0011 g cm-3)

• Lowest optical index of refraction (1.002)

• Lowest thermal conductivity (0.012 W m-1 K-1)

• Lowest speed of sound through a material (70 m s-1)

• Lowest dielectric constant from 3-40 GHz (1.008)


It can deliver 39 times more insulation than the best fibreglass.

It can be used at temperatures ranging from -200°C to + 650°C and is completely non-flammable.

It can have a good transparency, a good sound insulation and a good durability.

High Performance Thermal Insulation Materials

Thermal

Insulation

Materials and

Solutions

Low Pristine

Thermal

Conductivity

Low Long-

Term

Thermal

Conductivity

Perfor-

ation

Robust-

ness

Possible

Building

Site

Adaption

Cutting

Load

Bearing

Capabilities

A Thermal

Insulation

Material and

Solution of

Tomorrow?

Current conventional materials State- of- the- Art

Mineral Wool

and

Polystyrene No No Yes Yes No No

Today’s emerging State - of - the - Art

Vacuum

Insulation

Panels (VIP) Yes Maybe No No No

Today and

near future

Gas - Filled

Panels (GFP) Maybe Maybe No No No Probably not

Aerogels Maybe Maybe Yes Yes No

Yes,

Promising


Environmental Concerns

The production and use of silica aerogels is environmentally benign. No significantly hazardous wastes are produced during their production. The disposal of silica aerogels is perfectly natural. In the environment, they quickly crush into a fine powder that is essentially identical to one of the most common substances on Earth, namely, sand. Additionally, silica aerogels are completely non-toxic and non-flammable.


Potential Uses

• Insulation paint, plaster, concrete, panels for building insulation.

• Industrial and petrochemical equipment; power generation equipment

• Fire protection equipment • Aerospace and aeronautic

transportation • Sub-ambient piping and equipment;

chilled water systems; industrial gases

• Liquefied natural gas (LNG) import/export pipelines

• Gloves, jackets, sleeping bags, boots


HIPIN FP7 Project

7

• Industry/Industrial sectors:

• AkzoNobel (The Netherlands)

• SMEs:

• Separex (France)

• Thomas Swan (United Kingdom)

• Vimark (Italy)

• Methodo (Italy)

• Research organisations:

• TWI Ltd (United Kingdom)

• Envipark (Italy)

• Arup (United Kingdom)

• Orient Research (Turkey)

Call identifier FP7-2010-

NMP-ENV-ENERGY-ICT-EeB

3 Year Duration Started in December 2011

To develop a nano-based high performance

insulation system for energy efficiency


Develop new affordable technologies to incorporate aerogels into a suitable vehicle that can be applied as

thick paint layers, as plaster or incorporated into sandwich panels.

PAINTS PLASTERS PANELS

Final Expectations


TES58: with a 58% Silica content

Sol-gel technology use to produce a precursor with a 58% silica

content

High silica content more robust aerogel able to survive incorporation into matrices.


Aerogel reinforcement

Challenges: opacity increase with 50% Stöber sphere incorporation

Benefit: high reinforcement of the aerogel wall

Incorporation of Stöber spheres (Synthesised by TWI) (Pure silica spheres 20-200nm diameter) into TES58 increase silica content


Hydrophobic robust aerogels

Density to be optimised Transparency to be optimised ( but not needed for HIPIN application) BET characterisation to be performed


AEROGELS

The aerogels are produced using super critical CO2 drying.

Precursor, Solvent, Water and Catalyst

Gel Formation

Aging in mother liquor and washing

Supercritical drying

Aerogel

Variation of density Variation of catalyst Variation of surface treatment

Range of aerogels for

incorporation into paint and

plaster


Characterisation

Contact angle : A-hydrophilic, B-hydrophobic

Nano indentation: Hardness and modulus

BET analyses: pore size, specific area

SEM

Surface Area (m²/g) = 650 Pore Size (Å)= 8


Incorporation into Paint

First stage : hydrophobic aerogels: suitable sheen profile but hydrophobic aerogel create floatation in millbase and inclusions in the dry paint.

Aerogel ground < 0.1mm

Second phase: hydrophilic aerogels: Good incorporation of aerogel in millbase stage, still under investigation.

Suitable for both interior and exterior use. Replacement of a portion of the Chalk with Aerogel


Incorporation into Plaster

Three stages are critical during the plaster preparation: • Dry mixing • Mixing with water • Pumping in application stage

Aerogel inclusion into plaster formulation to combine mechanical strength and thermal properties


Inclusion into Panels Aim: To decrease the thicknesses of the insulating blanket (currently 9cm) into insulating panel. The ideal thickness for the insulating blanket is of course the lowest possible, but a very good thickness for common applications can be about 3 cm. The insulating blanket must - allow water transpiration - must not degrade when exposed to a significant

amount of moisture. - Be cost efficient

Method: selection of a proper matrix material for aerogel binding with good mechanical and insulation properties; by the determination of the aerogel volume content; and finally by carrying out tests with the individuated matrix material


Conclusions

• A precursor with a 60% silica has been successfully synthetized.

• Hipin aerogel has been successfully produced • Incorporation of HIPIN aerogel into paint , plaster

and panels is currently investigated. • Final product will be selected for the fabrication

of prototypes • Demonstration activities: evaluation of the

thermal properties for each prototype will be carried on real building.


Acknowledgements

• All the partners involved in the project including those not specifically named as authors to this presentation.

• The partners in the HiPin project kindly acknowledge that the research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme managed by REA Research Executive Agency FP7/2007-2013] under grant agreement number 260117.

Documents

Team : Géraldine Durand, Alan Taylor, Aurelie Rexach ... · PDF fileInsulation Material and Solution of ... ideal thickness for the insulating blanket is of course ... • The partners