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Title: Recovery Act. Advanced Building Insulation by the CO2 Foaming Process

Abstract

In this project, ISTN proposed to develop a new "3rd" generation of insulation technology. The focus was a cost-effective foaming process that could be used to manufacture XPS and other extruded polymer foams using environmentally clean blowing agents, and ultimately achieve higher R-values than existing products while maintaining the same level of cost-efficiency. In the U.S., state-of-the-art products are primarily manufactured by two companies: Dow and Owens Corning. These products (i.e., STYROFOAM and FOAMULAR) have a starting thermal resistance of R-5.0/inch, which declines over the life of the product as the HFC blowing agents essential to high R-value exchange with air in the environment. In the existing technologies, the substitution of CO2 for HFCs as the primary foaming agent results in a much lower starting R-value, as evidenced in CO2-foamed varieties of XPS in Europe with R-4.2/inch insulation value. The major overarching achievement from this project was ISTN's development of a new process that uses CO2 as a clean blowing agent to achieve up to R-5.2/inch at the manufacturing scale, with a production cost on a per unit basis that is less than the cost of Dow and Owens Corning XPS products.

Authors:
 [1]
  1. Industrial Science and Technology Network, Inc., Lancaster, PA (United States)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Industrial Science and Technology Network, Inc., Lancaster, PA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)
OSTI Identifier:
1248531
Report Number(s):
DOE-ISTN-0003983-1
DOE Contract Number:  
EE0003983
Resource Type:
Technical Report
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION; 36 MATERIALS SCIENCE; Insulation; building insulation; XPS; energy efficiency; building envelope; nanomaterials

Citation Formats

Yang, Arthur. Recovery Act. Advanced Building Insulation by the CO2 Foaming Process. United States: N. p., 2013. Web. doi:10.2172/1248531.
Yang, Arthur. Recovery Act. Advanced Building Insulation by the CO2 Foaming Process. United States. https://doi.org/10.2172/1248531
Yang, Arthur. 2013. "Recovery Act. Advanced Building Insulation by the CO2 Foaming Process". United States. https://doi.org/10.2172/1248531. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1248531.
@article{osti_1248531,
title = {Recovery Act. Advanced Building Insulation by the CO2 Foaming Process},
author = {Yang, Arthur},
abstractNote = {In this project, ISTN proposed to develop a new "3rd" generation of insulation technology. The focus was a cost-effective foaming process that could be used to manufacture XPS and other extruded polymer foams using environmentally clean blowing agents, and ultimately achieve higher R-values than existing products while maintaining the same level of cost-efficiency. In the U.S., state-of-the-art products are primarily manufactured by two companies: Dow and Owens Corning. These products (i.e., STYROFOAM and FOAMULAR) have a starting thermal resistance of R-5.0/inch, which declines over the life of the product as the HFC blowing agents essential to high R-value exchange with air in the environment. In the existing technologies, the substitution of CO2 for HFCs as the primary foaming agent results in a much lower starting R-value, as evidenced in CO2-foamed varieties of XPS in Europe with R-4.2/inch insulation value. The major overarching achievement from this project was ISTN's development of a new process that uses CO2 as a clean blowing agent to achieve up to R-5.2/inch at the manufacturing scale, with a production cost on a per unit basis that is less than the cost of Dow and Owens Corning XPS products.},
doi = {10.2172/1248531},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1248531}, journal = {},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {Mon Dec 30 00:00:00 EST 2013},
month = {Mon Dec 30 00:00:00 EST 2013}
}