Title : Nanostructured materials for thermal insulation paint
Abstract:
Thermal conditioning of interior spaces has been a fundamental issue for the development of societies, although the location of our planet allows us to enjoy conditions suitable for life, most geographical locations go through periods of cold and heat with different intensities, for which certain modifications to the rooms we inhabit are required to reach thermal comfort. Currently the most used way to thermally condition interior spaces is the installation of air conditioning equipment, which can modify the temperature and relative humidity, however, this equipment involves a large energy consumption, which is detrimental to environmental conservation and generates high costs for its users. This difficulty has been partially solved through the creation of thermal insulation coatings, which help reduce energy consumption, but at the same time these coatings present disadvantages, such as loss of usable space due to the great thicknesses, high costs, expertise necessary for its installation and in some cases also its manufacturing or handling processes are dangerous. For these reasons, nanotechnology that has made its way into many markets and applications, offers an alternative to paint and covers market to fulfill such needs. Functional paint is a promising market that has reinforced during the last years the growing idea of more green and sustainable products; nanostructured materials such as different types of aerogels are perfect vehicles to achieve that goal. Aerogel, the lightest material in the world has also another important characteristic, it has the lowest known thermal conductivity due to its nanometric holes full of air that prevents the transmission of heat. The use of aerogel in a waterborne paint formulation partially isolates the interior environment of an enclosure from the exterior climate (cold/heat) achieving thermal comfort, in addition to energy and economic savings by reducing the need of air conditioning or heating and also brings together the best characteristics of both aspects of thermal insulation: the high efficiency in insulation of conventional coatings but with low thicknesses, ease of installation, use of non-polluting or non-hazardous materials for the health. Nevertheless, some important issues must be solved before the aerogel can be successfully incorporated into de paint such as its high hydrophobicity and extremely low density. The present work explains solutions for the incorporation of aerogel in waterborne paint and partial results of an important reduction of temperature when using the developed paint to isolate interior environments are presented.
