Project details

Details

Recent work has shown the possibility to drastically increase the reflection performance of the building envelop, using nanotechnologies. Standard metal oxides are already known for their solar reflection properties, but latest developments identified that nanotechnologies can improve Index of Reflectance from an average of 0,35 to 0,85 because of their effectiveness on Near Infrared wavelengths, even on non white surfaces.

After 2 years of research the Cool Coverings project developed (1) a new range of colored paints for façade, (2) a new range of black tiles for façade, (3) a new colored bitumen based waterproofing membrane for flat roof. These materials can be now scaled up to market and the recent efforts of the industrial companies belonging to our consortium are all in this direction.

The materials have been validated following a strict scientific approach, firstly in the laboratories, than in simulations and finally in a middle scale comparative demonstration park. The following performances have been certified:

Case 1: re-roofing a flat warehouse in Madrid with the same grey membrane, but this time NIR reflective. Overall savings on the energy bill, in one year (considering conventional gas heating and electric HVAC) = 4,6%

Case 2: re-painting a multistorey house in Madrid with the same “dark green” tint, but this time NIR reflective. Overall savings on the energy bill, in one year (considering conventional gas heating and electric HVAC)= 7,5%

Case 3: re-tiling a multistorey house in Madrid with the same black tint, but this time NIR reflective. Overall savings on the energy bill, in one year (considering conventional gas heating and electric HVAC) = 4%

The cool coverings products have been developed thanks to the deep collaboration and cross expertise of 3 traditional building material industries, 1 construction company and 8 research & engineering companies:

• Step 1: development of nanoxides additives and pigments by using several different nanopowders production approaches (non disclosable information)
• Step 2: integration to paint, tiles and membranes (non disclosable information)
• Step 3: test in lab conditions, re-creating artificially the effect of rising and falling sun on standard building substrates
• Step 4: application of samples in a facility called “demo park” (Madrid) in order to assess their thermal behavior when integrated in a building mass. To do this, several middle scaled building were constructed in the area to perform a comparative analysis under real conditions, under the Spanish sun.

The three products are rather close to industrial scale up: roof membranes and cool paints are about to appear in the commercial catalogues, while roof tiles need to fine tune the industrialization process, although the current production line need only a light setting up.

All products are, at the moment, covered by trade secret apart from the membrane which was filed for PCT patent, in the white version. A further result of Cool Covering is, finally, a close to market prototype of spectral imaging portable device, which can be used to determine behaviour of cool coverings in a portable way (unique in the world).

List of achievements

The project results are available on CORDIS website.

Contact

Contact person: Vicente-Luis Guaita-Delgado
Address: KERABEN GRUPO SA
Tel:
email:

Documents

COOL-Coverings Publishable Summary

Status

Finished