The development of high performance insulating materials incorporating nanotechnologies has enabled considerable decrease in the effective thermal conductivity. Besides the use of conventional insulating materials, such as mineral fibers, the adoption of new nano-technological materials such as aerogel, vacuum insulation panels, graphite expanded polystyrene, is growing. In order to reduce the thermal conductivity of polystyrene insulation materials, during the manufacturing, nano/micro-sized graphite particles are added to the melt of the polystyrene grains. The mixing of graphite flakes into the polystyrene mould further reduces the lambda value, since graphite parts significantly reflect the radiant part of the thermal energy. In this study, laboratory tests carried out on graphite insulation materials are presented. Firstly, thermal conductivity results are described, and then sorption kinetic curves at high moisture content levels are shown. The moisture up-taking behaviour of the materials was investigated with a climatic chamber where the relative humidity was 90% at 293 K temperature. Finally, calorific values of the samples are presented after combusting in a bomb calorimeter.
Thermal characterization of different graphite polystyrene
