scholarly journals Factors for Eco-Efficiency Improvement of Thermal Insulation Materials

2016 ◽  
Vol 678 ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun Kono ◽  
Yutaka Goto ◽  
York Ostermeyer ◽  
Rolf Frischknecht ◽  
Holger Wallbaum
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Physical Properties ◽  
Production Process ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Thermal Insulation ◽  
Foam Glass ◽  
Insulation Material ◽  
Contributing Factors ◽  
Insulation Materials ◽  
Thermo Physical Properties

Thermal insulation material is an important component to reduce the environmental impact of buildings through the reduction of energy consumption in the operation phase. However, the material itself has embodied environmental impacts for the value it provides. Eco-efficiency is a method that quantifies relation between the environmental performance and the created value of a product system. This study investigated contributing factors of the eco-efficiency of thermal insulation materials to support decision making of material manufacturers. For the improvement of eco-efficiency, the assessment was made in two scopes: investigating the contributing factors of impact caused at production processes; and thermal performance through thermo-physical properties. For quantifying environmental impacts, cradle-to-grave life cycle assessment (LCA) of each materials were made. The life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) indicators used were ReCiPe H/A and global warming potential (GWP100a). For the assessment of production process, the inventories of the materials were assigned to six categories: heat, chemicals, electricity, transportation, raw materials and wastes. Among the assessed materials, contribution of electricity and heat within the production process was large for foam glass which had the highest potential to improve the eco-efficiency which was by factor 1.72. The analysis on relation between thermo-physical properties and eco-efficiency based on product data of the materials highlighted the importance of density as an indicator upon development and use. Althoughdensity often gains less attention,the finding suggested the effectiveness of improving the efficiency by having lower density without compensating the performance of the materials.

scholarly journals Evaluation of Physical Properties of Mycelium-Based Bio Composites for Use As Facade Insulation Material

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Dehn ◽  
Engin Kotan
Keyword(s):  
Physical Properties ◽  
Thermal Insulation ◽  
Beech Wood ◽  
Fungal Mycelium ◽  
Insulation Material ◽  
Test Results ◽  
Construction Sector ◽  
Rice Husks ◽  
Insulation Materials ◽  
Base Substrate

Abstract Background: To evaluate the usability of mycelium-based materials for construction, first tests were carried out to determine their suitability for thermal insulation. Different substrate compositions were tested for various physical properties. The compositions and experimental setups used are described in the “Methods” section. Results: Materials based on fungal mycelium were found to have promising properties for use in the construction sector. Their thermal conductivities are comparable to those of commercially available ecological insulation materials. As material properties turned out to be dependent on the substrate used for the production of mycelium materials, further optimisation is required. Conclusion: For first preliminary tests [1] to study the performance of mycelium-based materials, different additives (beech wood, rice husks, coffee silver skin, perlite rock) were added to a base substrate to determine their influence on physical properties. Compared to the characteristics of conventional thermal insulation materials, the test results obtained are rather promising and confirm suitability of mycelium-based materials for building. However, further systematic studies are needed to investigate options to improve major properties and to ensure reproducibility of mycelium materials with largely homogeneous properties.

scholarly journals Environmental Impact and Life Cycle Assessment of Economically Optimized Thermal Insulation Materials for Different Climatic Region in Iraq

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4.37) ◽  
pp. 163
Author(s):  
Murad Saeed Sedeeq ◽  
Shadan Kareem Ameen ◽  
Ali Bolatturk
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Thermal Insulation ◽  
Impact Analysis ◽  
Expanded Polystyrene ◽  
Insulation Material ◽  
Insulation Materials ◽  
Climatic Regions ◽  
Damage Categories

Environmental pollution is one of the biggest problems facing the world, even it is the most dangerous. Therefore, it becomes necessary to combine all efforts to reduce or eliminate it. Iraq is at the forefront of countries that suffer from major environmental problems. The present study aims to perform a comparative environmental assessment for three commonly available thermal insulation materials in Iraq namely expanded polystyrene (EPS), extruded polystyrene (XPS), and rock wool (RW) to select least environmental impact material. A cradle to gate life cycle assessment is performed to assess the environmental impact of each insulation material taking into account manufacturing, transportation, and installation and disposal stages. A life cycle assessment program SimaPro is used to model thermal insulation materials during its life cycle. A life cycle impact analysis method CML 2001 has been selected to assess the environmental aspects associated with two global damage categories as ozone layer depletion and global warming and two regional damage categories as acidification and eutrophication. Economically optimized amount of each insulation material is selected to represent the functional unit of life cycle assessment. The results illustrate that the EPS has the lower contribution in all environmental impact categories for all climatic regions. So, the EPS can be select as a proper thermal insulation material for the building sector from an economic and environmental perspective. The results of LCA are used to determine the amount of CO2 can be reduced per meter square of the exterior wall by using the economical amount of EPS during the lifetime of insulation material. The environmental impact results show that using EPS will contribute in CO2 emission reduction at about 81.5 % in all climatic regions in Iraq. 

Comparative Study on Life Cycle Assessment for Typical Building Thermal Insulation Materials in China

2014 ◽  
Vol 787 ◽  
pp. 176-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Li Ping Ma ◽  
Quan Jiang ◽  
Ping Zhao ◽  
Chun Zhi Zhao
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Energy Saving ◽  
Thermal Insulation ◽  
Heat Conductivity ◽  
Insulation Material ◽  
Insulation Materials ◽  
Volume Weight ◽  
Rock Wool

Studies on life cycle assessment of three typical building thermal insulation materials including polystyrene board, rock wool board, and rigid foam polyurethane board related to building energy-saving were carried out. Based on the method of life cycle assessment, "1 kg of thermal insulation material" is first selected as one of the functional units in this study based on the production field data statistics and general market transaction rules of the thermal insulation materials, and life cycle resource consumption, energy consumption and exhaust emission of the three products in China are deeply surveyed and analyzed. The abiotic depletion potential (ADP), primary energy demand (PED), and global warming potential (GWP) for production of 1 kg of the three thermal insulation materials are calculated and analyzed. Furthermore, the functional unit is extended to be "1 m2 of thermal insulation material meeting the same energy-saving requirements" so as to compare the difference of environmental friendliness among the three building thermal insulation materials, and the corresponding life cycle environmental impact is also calculated and analyzed. As shown by the results, where calculated in unit mass, the order of production life cycle environmental impact significances of the thermal insulation materials is as follows: rock wool board < polyurethane board < polystyrene board. However, where calculated in unit area (m2) meeting the 65% energy-saving requirements, the production life cycle environmental impact significances of the three kinds of insulation materials are sorted as polystyrene board < polyurethane board < rock wool board, whatever the region is, which is opposite with that of the results for the insulation materials in unit mass (kg). The reason for such difference is that they have different volume weights and heat conductivity coefficients. The polystyrene board has a smaller volume weight and the smallest heat conductivity coefficient, whereas the rock wool board has the highest volume weight and heat conductivity coefficient. Source of the project fund. Subject "the Research and Application of Life Cycle Assessment Technology to the Building Materials for Building Engineering in Typical Regions" of the National Science & Technology Pillar Program during the Twelfth Five-year Plan Period (No.: 2011BAJ04B06)

scholarly journals USE OF MICROWAVE RADIATION FOR SEPARATION OF LIQUID GLASS HEAT INSULATION MATERIALS

2021 ◽  
pp. 15-24
Author(s):  
Tatyana Rymar
Keyword(s):  
Microwave Radiation ◽  
Thermal Insulation ◽  
Liquid Glass ◽  
Foam Glass ◽  
High Energy ◽  
Production Costs ◽  
Insulation Material ◽  
Volumetric Heating ◽  
Insulation Materials ◽  
Glass Granulate

The study of the thermal insulation market of Ukraine showed that the market is dominated by aerated concrete and silicates, which are used as thermal insulation materials at an average density of 300-500 kg / m3. Their disadvantages include high values of water absorption and hygroscopicity, as well as very low flexural strength, because this material does not have elasticity and the use of small bending forces leads to its cracking. Foam glass has a set of operational properties that meet the highest regulatory requirements. Foam glass is the strongest of all effective thermal insulation materials, but this material is fragile. It is sensitive to vibration - induced damage. In addition, the technology of production of foam glass is quite complex and requires high energy consumption, as a consequence, the cost of this material is high. Therefore, it was important to develop thermal insulation material with the appropriate level of performance while reducing production costs. This was achieved by using energy-saving microwave technology to swell liquid glass materials. This technology is based on the simultaneous swelling of the liquid glass granulate and the binder under microwave radiation, which, due to the volumetric heating of the liquid glass composition, allows to obtain a strong monolithic material with a rigid, homogeneous and mostly closed-porous structure. The production of thermal insulation materials is proposed to be carried out on the basis of liquid glass granulate, because the introduction of granules reduces the deformability and shrinkage of the material and prevents its cracking, increases its strength, because the granular material has a certain plastic deformation, reduces water hygroscopicity. granules swell to form a compacted shell, which slows down the absorption kinetics of water and its vapor. The monolithic granules are proposed to be carried out with a binder that foams not only due to the release of water, but also with the help of a gasifier, because this technology will allow uniform distribution of the binder in the intergranular space, thus forming a more homogeneous structure of the material, which has a positive effect on its physical and mechanical characteristics.

Investigation of thermo-physical properties of thermal insulation coating

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michal Kopčok ◽  
Jozefa Lukovičová ◽  
Jozef Kačur ◽  
Gabriela Pavlendová
Keyword(s):  
Physical Properties ◽  
Thermal Insulation ◽  
Insulation Coating ◽  
Thermo Physical Properties

Preparation and Properties of Phase Change Thermal Insulation Materials

2018 ◽  
Vol 281 ◽  
pp. 131-136
Author(s):  
Shi Chao Zhang ◽  
Wei Wu ◽  
Yu Feng Chen ◽  
Liu Shi Tao ◽  
Kai Fang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Phase Change ◽  
Thermal Insulation ◽  
Calcium Silicate ◽  
Phase Change Materials ◽  
Performance Test ◽  
Thermal Protection ◽  
Insulation Material ◽  
Insulation Materials ◽  
Short Time ◽  
Change Material

With the increase of the speed of vehicle, the thermal protection system of its powerplant requires higher insulation materials. Phase change materials can absorb large amounts of heat in short time. So the introduction of phase change materials in thermal insulation materials can achieve efficient insulation in a limited space for a short time. In this paper, a new phase change thermal insulation material was prepared by pressure molding with microporous calcium silicate as matrix and Li2CO3 as phase change material. The morphology stability, exudation and heat insulation of the materials were tested. The results show that the porous structure of microporous calcium silicate has a good encapsulation when the phase transition of Li2CO3 is changed into liquid. And the material has no leakage during use. The thermal performance test also shows that the insulation performance of the material has obvious advantages in the short term application.

scholarly journals Application of Life Cycle Assessment and Machine Learning for High-Throughput Screening of Green Chemical Substitutes

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xinzhe Zhu ◽  
Chi-Hung Ho ◽  
Xiaonan Wang
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Production Process ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
High Throughput ◽  
High Throughput Screening ◽  
Molecular Descriptors ◽  
Trifluoroacetic Anhydride ◽  
Chemical Materials

<p><a></a><a>The production process of many active pharmaceutical ingredients such as sitagliptin could cause severe environmental problems due to the use of toxic chemical materials and production infrastructure, energy consumption and wastes treatment. The environmental impacts of sitagliptin production process were estimated with life cycle assessment (LCA) method, which suggested that the use of chemical materials provided the major environmental impacts. Both methods of Eco-indicator 99 and ReCiPe endpoints confirmed that chemical feedstock accounted 83% and 70% of life-cycle impact, respectively. Among all the chemical materials used in the sitagliptin production process, </a><a>trifluoroacetic anhydride </a>was identified as the largest influential factor in most impact categories according to the results of ReCiPe midpoints method. Therefore, high-throughput screening was performed to seek for green chemical substitutes to replace the target chemical (i.e. trifluoroacetic anhydride) by the following three steps. Firstly, thirty most similar chemicals were obtained from two million candidate alternatives in PubChem database based on their molecular descriptors. Thereafter, deep learning neural network models were developed to predict life-cycle impact according to the chemicals in Ecoinvent v3.5 database with known LCA values and corresponding molecular descriptors. Finally, 1,2-ethanediyl ester was proved to be one of the potential greener substitutes after the LCA data of these similar chemicals were predicted using the well-trained machine learning models. The case study demonstrated the applicability of the novel framework to screen green chemical substitutes and optimize the pharmaceutical manufacturing process.</p>

Effects of boric acid addition and sintering temperature on the thermal conductivity of perlitebased insulation materials

2020 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 408-412
Author(s):  
Yuksel Palaci
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Conductivity ◽  
Physical Properties ◽  
Boric Acid ◽  
Thermal Insulation ◽  
Sintering Temperature ◽  
Direct Relation ◽  
Insulation Materials ◽  
Acid Addition ◽  
Composition Characteristics

Abstract In this study, the variation of thermal conductivity and density of 15 wt.-% boric acid - 85 wt.-% sepiolite, 30 wt.-% boric acid - 30 wt.-% sepiolite - 40 wt.-% perlite, 30 wt.-% boric acid - 30 wt.-% cordierite - 40 wt.-% perlite and 30 wt.-% boric acid - 30 wt.-% alumina - 40 wt.-% perlite compositions at 700 °C and 900 °C sintering temperatures were investigated. The results show that increasing the amount of boric acid and decreasing the sintering temperature lead to an improvement in thermal insulation properties. There is a direct relation between the thermal conductivity and density of the specimens. Both physical properties change with a change in the sintering temperature and the composition characteristics. Minimum thermal conductivity has been observed in a specimen consisting of 30 wt.-% boric acid - 30 wt.-% alumina - 40 wt.-% perlite.

LCA of Fibre Flax Thermal Insulation

2016 ◽  
Vol 824 ◽  
pp. 761-769
Author(s):  
Karel Struhala ◽  
Zuzana Stránská ◽  
Jiří Sedlák
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Thermal Insulation ◽  
Insulation Material ◽  
Production Facility ◽  
Chemical Additives ◽  
Fibre Flax ◽  
Gate System ◽  
Cradle To Gate ◽  
Main Components

This paper brings readers a study of Life-Cycle Assessment of thermal insulation panels made of the stems of fibre flax. This study uses cradle-to-gate system boundaries, which means that only growing and harvesting of flax and subsequent processing and manufacturing of the insulation material are included in the assessment. Transport between the facilities is also included, because it has significant impact on the results - the production facility is located in Czech Republic, but thanks to the costs main components (fibre flax stems and chemical additives) are grown or produced in various countries around the globe. The paper shows that production of such insulation material has environmental impacts comparable with other insulation materials. Conclusion of the paper includes discussion about share of individual parts of the production process (growing, harvesting, transport, processing and manufacturing) on the overall results and recommendations of changes that would lead to decrease the overall environmental impacts.

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