Airglass is a transparent material that looks like glass, insulates better than mineral wool and is more heat resistant than aluminum. The material has many interesting properties and possible applications such as insulation in windows and solar collectors, windows in firewalls, a component in air-conditioning equipment, you name it.
Project objectives and expected achievements
Utilization of solar energy in new low energy buildings and in existing buildings takes mainly place by the transparent area of the thermal envelope i.e. the windows. The window area is also the weakest part of the thermal envelope in general. The contradiction between transparency and insulation at windows must be overcome in order to reduce the energy consumption for space heating.
The application of evacuated monolithic silica aerogel as transparent insulation material in glazings of windows is one of the most promising ways to make a window, which as the same time is highly insulating and highly transparent.
In principle, the aerogel process consists of a sol-gel process succeeded by a supercritical drying of the gel. The product is a transparent, highly porous, inorganic material in which the solid part is quartz.
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