Image of porous silica material in alcohol.
Porous silica material in alcohol.
Oak Ridge National Lab

Lead Performer: Oak Ridge National Laboratory – Oak Ridge, TN
Partner: VELUX Design and Development Company USA Inc., Greenwood, SC
DOE Funding: $473,631
Cost Share: $75,000
Project Term: October 1, 2014 – September 30, 2016
Funding Opportunity: Building Energy Efficiency Frontiers and Incubator Technologies (BENEFIT) - 2014 (DE-FOA-0001027)

Project Objective

This project is developing and demonstrating a porous silica based transparent insulation material for the fenestration products. The developed material will be filled in prototype Insulated glazing Units (IGU) that will be used to demonstrate the thermal insulation and visible transmittance properties of the developed material. The result will be a cost-effective and thermally insulating transparent IGU.

Project Impact

The technical barrier that this work will address is reducing the cost of the windows while improving their insulation without compromising their transparency. Windows are responsible for about 2.15 quads of heating energy consumption and 1.48 quads of cooling energy consumption annually. A market study estimates that more than 50% of residential windows and more than 40% of commercial windows sold from 1993 to 2001 are either single-pane (≈R1) or double-pane clear-glass (≈R2) windows. Replacing these windows with the transparent insulation material developed under this project would save a significant amount of energy in both residential and commercial buildings.

Contacts

DOE Technology Manager: Karma Sawyer
Lead Performer: Jaswinder Sharma, Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Related Publications

“Colloidosome like structures: self-assembly of silica microrods” (RSC Advances; March 2016)