Aerogel composites for carbon capture and thermal management in commercial buildings - Feasibility Study

减少建筑物能耗和全球二氧化碳排放的最有效方法之一是通过表面涂层减少热量损失和获得。由于这构成了建筑物制冷和供暖负荷的40%以上，因此减少它是节能的有效步骤。在建筑物的设计和建造过程中，制造和使用气凝胶等导热系数低的材料将确保隔热是通过减少空调和供暖需求来减少能源费用的有效方法。此外，有文件证明，办公室的室内二氧化碳水平可能高达3700 ppm，学校的室内二氧化碳水平可能高达2800 ppm，远远高于室外400 ppm的二氧化碳水平。城市地区的空气质量和相关的健康影响是发达国家和发展中国家的一个主要关切。气凝胶是一种超轻材料，具有最高的孔隙率。气凝胶具有出色的隔热性能，因此是理想的建筑材料。气凝胶已经被NASA用于高级应用。然而，这些材料的广泛使用仍然受到限制，因为目前的商业合成方法需要高压和高温来干燥凝胶，这是能量密集型的，因此产生的材料对于除了高度专业化的用途之外的所有用途来说都太昂贵。凝胶的环境压力干燥提供了一种替代的、能量密集度较低的途径，但通常依赖于用各种有机溶剂代替用于凝胶制备的原始溶剂，这些溶剂也非常昂贵。纽卡斯尔大学的PI团队最近发现了一种简单的常压干燥气凝胶的新方法，该方法无需使用有机溶剂。这种环保技术有可能成为气凝胶和气凝胶基复合材料（包括“智能”材料）的可持续、低成本制造的基础。我们的可行性研究旨在大幅降低成本，并工程规模化开发新型复合气凝胶基材料，用于建筑物中的直接碳空气捕获和高效隔热。如果这项研究成功，它将降低世界能源消耗。由于总的碳足迹与建筑物能源效率工作的预测规模相似，我们建议的商业建筑物二氧化碳减排研究也可以在气候相关的规模上产生影响，并对空气质量产生直接影响。该项目旨在将气凝胶制造成本降低十倍，使高质量的功能性绝缘材料广泛使用，提高能源效率，并使英国制造业处于新技术的前沿。

One of the most efficient methods for reducing energy consumption in buildings and therefore global CO2 emission is the reduction of heat loss and gain via surface coatings. Since this constitutes over 40% of the building cooling and heating load, its reduction is an effective step in energy reduction. Manufacturing and using materials with low thermal conductivity such as aerogels, during the design and construction of the buildings will ensure that the insulation is an effective method for reducing energy bills through reduction of air conditioning and heating demand. In addition, it has been documented that indoor CO2 levels could be as high as 3700ppm in offices and 2800 ppm in schools which is considerably larger than 400 ppm CO2 outdoor levels. Air quality and associated health effects in urban areas are a major concern in both developed and developing countries. Aerogels are ultra-light materials with the highest porosity known to man. Aerogels have outstanding thermal insulation properties and are therefore ideal materials for use in buildings. Aerogels have already been used in advanced applications by NASA. However, the widespread use of these materials is still limited because current commercial methods of synthesis require high pressure and high temperature to dry the gel, which is energy intensive and therefore produces materials too expensive for all except highly specialised use. Ambient pressure drying of gels provides an alternative, less energy intensive, route but commonly relies on replacing the original solvent used for gel preparation with various organic solvents which are also very costly. The PI team at Newcastle University have recently discovered a simple novel method for ambient pressure drying of aerogels which eliminates the need for use of organic solvents. This environmentally friendly technique has the potential to form the basis of sustainable, low cost manufacturing of aerogels and aerogel-based composites, including 'smart' materials.Our feasibility study aims to make substantial cost reduction and engineering scale up development of new composite aerogel based materials for simultaneous direct carbon air capture in buildings and as efficient thermal insulation. If the study were successful, it would bring down energy consumption in the world. Since the total carbon footprint is similar in magnitude to that projected for energy efficiency efforts in buildings, the study that we propose on CO2 removal from commercial buildings, can also have impact at a climatically relevant scale and has direct implications for air quality. This project aims at reducing the cost of aerogel manufacture tenfold making high quality functional insulating materials widely available, improving energy efficiency and placing UK manufacturing in the forefront of a new technology.