Recovery Act. Advanced Building Insulation by the CO2 Foaming Process
- Industrial Science and Technology Network, Inc., Lancaster, PA (United States)
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.
- Research Organization:
- Industrial Science and Technology Network, Inc., Lancaster, PA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)
- DOE Contract Number:
- EE0003983
- OSTI ID:
- 1248531
- Report Number(s):
- DOE-ISTN-0003983-1
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Assessment of the Performance of Hydrofluoroolefins, Hydrochlorofluoroolefins, and Halogen-Free Foam Blowing Agents in Cellular Plastic Foams
Energy and global warming impacts of CFC alternative technologies for foam building insulations