Scientific breakthrough: University invents heat-regulating building material
In a major scientific breakthrough with important long-term environmental consequences, researchers at The University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC) have developed a material that will cut the amount of energy a building uses by more than one-third.
The material has the remarkable quality of being able to retain and release heat according to the specific temperature requirements for a building and will help dramatically reduce heating and cooling bills.
It has the unique advantage of possessing a larger energy storage capacity with faster thermal response than existing materials and could be cheaply manufactured.
If, for example, the required optimum temperature in a room is 22°C, the material can be fixed so that it starts absorbing any excess heat above that temperature.
The heat-regulating material can be used in existing buildings as well as during the construction of new real estate and could be applied anywhere, from walls and roofs to wallpaper.
The material looks like a circular tablet with the circumference of a large coin in the laboratory. It can be manufactured in a variety of shapes and sizes, including so small that it can be sprayed as an unobtrusive microscopic film to surfaces.
The building material was recently awarded a patent application approval in China, the University was in a position to announce this week, and patent applications are in the pipeline in other countries.
It was invented by researchers at the University’s Centre for Sustainable Energy Technologies.
The scientists responsible for the invention are: project leader Professor Jo Darkwa, who is Director of the Centre for Sustainable Energy Technologies; Research Associate Oliver Su; and, PhD student Tony Zhou.
“The construction industry produces more carbon emissions than any other industry in the world – even more than aviation. In China, the building sector is one of the highest energy consuming sectors, accounting for about 30% of total energy usage and also a significant proportion of pollutant emissions,” noted Professor Darkwa.
“This material, if widely used, could make a major impact in the world’s efforts to reduce carbon emission,” he said.
The basic structure of the material has to be engineered for a specific temperature before it is used. The next developmental steps will include creating material which can be used for both heating and cooling applications.
“The material won’t make air-conditioners obsolete, because you still need an air conditioner to control humidity and air movement. This material purely reduces the amount of excessive heat energy in a room,” said Professor Darkwa.
Professor Darkwa said the University is looking to develop the material further as well as commercialise it.
It already has a number of sponsors and partners involved in the research, including the Ningbo Science and Technology Bureau – which provided important funding and support for the initial two-year research – and private companies based in China.
The material could save up to 35% of energy in a building and scientists believe it could also be used in solar panels and LED (light-emitting diode) lighting to enhance the efficiency of these alternative energy-generating technologies.
Also on the cards for further research at UNNC are:
• Exploring which types of paints can be used with the unique material;
• Studies to determine the long-term environmental impacts of the use of the materials; and
• Ways to improve the production of the material to enhance cost efficiency and ensure the process is environmentally-friendly.
The new material is called: novel non-deformed energy storage phase change material (PCM).
The scientists at the Centre for Sustainable Energy Technologies, meanwhile, are involved in various other projects aimed at finding ways to reduce the global carbon footprint emitted by the world’s buildings.
Professor Darkwa and Dr David Chow, who leads the Architectural Environment Engineering degree programme, have played a major role in work behind new building regulation laws in Ningbo, China. Building developers in the city are compelled to include at least one sustainable energy technology, among other steps, to reduce any environmental harm associated with construction.
China’s national government is on a major drive to improve the country’s environmental track record and the University’s scientists are increasingly involved in making recommendations to policy makers at the highest levels.
In October, UNNC will be the site of China’s second international symposium on low carbon buildings when scientists, researchers, government officials and practitioners will gather to present and discuss recent research outputs and demonstration projects.
Professor Nabil Gindy, Vice-Provost for Research and Dean of the Graduate School at UNNC, said: “The University’s strategic investment in research infrastructure to facilitate the advancement of knowledge in sustainable energy technologies is reaping rewards.
“We are very proud of the research excellence of this particular team of scientists, who have proven to be world-class specialists in the field of sustainable energy technologies. The University of Nottingham has a longstanding commitment to the global environmental agenda,” he said.
The University’s cutting-edge research feeds into all teaching programmes and PhD students, like Mr Zhou, also get the opportunity to make valuable contributions to the advancement of science, he noted.
Professor Gindy said: “Vital for our scientific progress here, too, is the huge support we receive from the Ningbo city authorities, who also recognise the importance of minimising environmental harm and placing sustainability at the forefront of all endeavours.
“We are, of course, also grateful for assistance from our research collaborators at other universities and in the private sector,” he said.
The full cost of the research entailed in developing the new building material has not been disclosed. However, it was made possible through various grants, including from the Ningbo government, KK Chung Educational Group, Hong Kong-based Sustainable Sourcing Ltd and China’s Suntech Ltd.
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Phase changes in wood sap help to make log cabins cool in the summer and warm in the winter. If the principle can be extended to main stream construction, and the economics work, this will be a useful development.
Re: Roger Sowell and “ThermalCORE”. I followed this link, and from a link to the manufacturer’s site, where it says “not commercially available”. The most recent update in their “news” section is October, 2010. Not terribly encouraging for something introduced in 2004.
There is a long path from “looks really neat in the lab” to commercially practical. I’m still waiting for some of the things I read about in Popular Mechanics in the late 1960’s.
Maybe this will pan out; maybe it won’t. But it’s always interesting to read about possibilities.
The article above could be written about virtually any type of building material. This sounds like marketing jibberish. Bricks, stucco, and drywall are all “self-regulating.” The problem is you have to build based on a certain set of assumptions, but hey, weather is weather.
@Zuiderwijk
Robin Hood did not come from Nottingham. He came from Wakefield, Yorkshire, near the bus station (tho’ that was not there then).
Who said, “When it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t true”?
SimonJ – Please note it’s not instantly renewable – that would indeed be handy. The renewing process takes a while, but all you have to do is wait for the CO2, ash, etc,to be turned back into trees. If you’re prepared to pay extra, I’m sure you could find firewood on sale with “renewable” stamped on it. As a side note, it always disturbs me that the greenies, who are the people whose rhetoric is so in favour of “renewables”, are so opposed to the great renewable industries such as forestry and hydroelectric power. They are even attacking agriculture now, seeing global dangers in cow farts, of all things. They don’t seem to understand that today’s cow farts are tomorrow’s essentials. Every time you tuck into bacon and eggs, for instance, part of it has passed through a cow fart.
And….what about those walking and negentropic machines fueled by garbage food, burning it with oxygen and producing, each, an amount of more than two pounds of CO2 per day while radiating IR (heat), currently called humans?
The end of UHI effect?
Mike Jonas says:
August 4, 2011 at 1:10 am
“What the hell is “renewable firewood”, and where can I get some?”
Its called Pine and it spits cinders all over your carpets when the resin gets warm!
As a Contractor I got 2 words for you: “”Chinese Drywall”. I wouldn’t trust anything coming out of that country for all the tea in…well, you get the point.
To retain heat is a thermodynamic impossibility. The 2nd law forbids it. Everything will release heat when above ambient temperature. Insulation slows the heat loss but cannot stop it.
China is the place for cheaply made products.
@ur momisugly John Marshall
“To retain heat is a thermodynamic impossibility……”
As sensible heat I agree But as mechanical stress in a phase change chemical it definitely is possible!
My emergency heat packs sit in our car glove box for years at the ambient temperature of the car.
However when I ping the clicker in the liquid, the phase change from liquid to solid occurs and a useful amount of heat is emitted as the liquid solidifies. (for about 45 minutes) Very useful relief for my wife who sometimes has rheumatic hip pain, whilst traveling in the car.
regards
P
As long as it has insulation properties equal to or better than the materials it replaces, great idea.
But if you don’t have the temperature swings that go above and below the “set-point” of the material, it’s just insulation. A red flag goes up that this is a prime candidate for “green” tax credits and subsidies …. and our building/remodeling costs are going up….whether it works or not.
Sounds like a very magical material – it must be made out of CO2.
Combined with LENR and CANR, this material will create a new reality. One in which energy will be created or saved to the extent that we end up with more than we started with. The new problem – runaway spontaneous energy production. Despite all of our efforts to use this excess energy in as many frivolous ways as we can imagine, we will lose the battle. The icecaps will melt, global temps will rise, the oceans will boil away and within the century the earth will burst into flames. Trust me, I have a predictive model.
When I went out west for vacation a few years ago, we spent a good deal of time exploring the old structures built by the Native Americans. We marveled that no matter how hot it was outside (over 100 degrees F, most days), the temperature inside was comfortable. They built with mud-brick and stacked stone, with walls about a foot thick.
The structures were not sealed up in any way; they had open doors and windows. One can only imagine how much better the structures would have mitigated the swings in temperature if they had doors and windows that could be opened when the inside needed to be heated or cooled, and shut when the outside temperature was hotter or cooler than what was desired.
If I were to build a new home today, there is no question that I would build it with walls that had a large thermal mass and used the position of the sun to the best advantage. It’s entirely possible that air-conditioning might be completely unnecessary if the home is built right.
With mud and stone being just about the cheapest materials known to man, why would we need to develop any artificial material to do the job that dirt and rock do so well?
For anyone confused by this, it functions by storing energy.
During the cooling season, it absorbs heat over the course of the day by changing from solid to liquid then releases it overnight by turning back into a solid. It is exactly like freezing a bunch of ice overnight and blowing air over it to keep your house cool during the day.
It saves energy because cooling it overnight is cheaper and requires less energy. In places like Denver where you have large daily temperature swings you could get by with a much smaller or no air conditioning system.
Ed Zuiderwijk says:
August 4, 2011 at 3:30 am
“Nottingham, by the way, was the place where Robin Hood came from. Odd name for a Chinese institute, but perhaps an indication of the real agenda here?”
The campus in China is a branch of the University of Nottingham in the East Midlands of the UK
The basic idea is to keep the heat out on hot days and in on cold days. Phase change is a possible strategy, but limited to the heat capacity of the material. Insulation does not try to retain heat, and is not so limited. Thermal ballast (mud walls, water-filled walls) is another possiblity.
A stack of alternating layers of reflective foil (aluminum, copper) and non-conducting fiber (cellulose, glass) makes an EXCELLENT insulator, useful for keeping liquid nitrogen cold for weeks at a time, or protecting fire fighters. It will work in walls, too.
It will *always* be more cost effective to use low-tech materials, even if you must use more of them.
I agree with the above posters that think this is pie in the sky science.
Yes, contrary to the above statement heat can be stored. Phase changes in most materials eg from solid to liquid to gas tend to store large amounts of heat. Look at a steam table or a refrigerator.
Adding a couple inches of wax that melts sharply at 70deg F would do exactly what the article claims. The thermostat on most vehicles is based on the density change of a wax pellet that is blended to melt sharply at the control temperature. The change in density could cause (will cause, probably) a significant challenge using any material with this property as a building material and the cost of manufacture.
Spraying a thin coat of this material won’t do squat unless this stuff stores enormous quantities of heat compared to it’s mass and density in which case it will be used in batteries long before ot gets pasted to your walls. Toxicity is probably a factor in using it on the interior surfaces of your home, talk about exposure. It better be made of vitamins and happy feelings.
But, does it work better if you paint it white?
If a phase change material has more heat capacity than water, it will be a good product. You can place some water in a partially evacuated container and ‘set’ the boiling point to pretty much whatever you like. That is how a heat pipe works: phase change at a predetermined temperature, which is different from its normal boiling or freezing point, but it is used to transport heat, not hang onto it
It is known that placing water in an electrical charge will solidify it (search for ‘hot ice’ in proteins). Is there a normal heat release when this happens? I think so. That is another method of pulling heat into or out of an object: an electrically induced phase change.
Wait. Did I miss something? There’s a Chinese Patent authority? And they care about who owns rights to something potentially valuable?
Why not do as the bees do? Encapsulate the wax inside a strong hexagonal honeycomb. Polycarbonate or carbon fiberglass springs to mind, 4″ thick for interstud application, 4’x8′ sheets for drywall substitution.
Commercial applications are dancing in my financial $$$ vision. GK
looks like a free lunch scam to me … if the material removes heat from a room it has to go somewhere … it doesn’t just eat it …
vvvvv Sun vvvv
xxxxxxxxx roof xxxxxxxxxxxxx
nnnnnnn new insulation nnnnnnn
hhhhhh hot air in room hhhhhhh
explain to me where the heat absorbed by this new insulation will go ?