Global Insulation Conference and Exhibition 2012
18-19 September, Riga, Latvia
Image gallery for the 7th Global Insulation Conference and Exhibition 2012
The seventh Global Insulation Conference and Exhibition took place in Riga, Latvia, on 18-19 September, with around 100 participants from 19 different countries, as well as including an exhibition of 10 international equipment and insulation service providers, making it the largest and most international Global Insulation Conference so far staged. The eighth Global Insulation Conference and Exhibition will take place in September 2013, in Aachen, Germany.
Tim Swales, head of R&D for Johns Manville, gave the first keynote presentation at the conference and spoke about the future of insulation systems. Tim pointed out that innovation is going on in insulation products but that developments in systems can bring even greater benefits. Building envelope systems are designed to deliver comfort, health and safety, durability and sustainability, through the control of heat and moisture. Tim mentioned the IBACOS lab home, a showcase for insulation best practice, which had R40 walls and an R60 attic with staggered framing, and which used XPS, foam and sprayed fibres. The house was very air tight, with only 0.54 air changes per hour, and also boasted a high performance air conditioning system. Tim suggested that around 37,000 passivhaus building are now in existence, enjoying low or zero energy heating and cooling. As director for sustainability at Johns Manville, a company that manufactures both organic and inorganic insulation and other insulation types besides, Tim mentioned that insulation systems will be required to be recyclable and possibly reusable in the future.
Professor Young Cheol Kwon of Halla University, South Korea next introduced the use of insulation in Korean buildings in the second keynote presentation. Professor Kwon pointed out that in the 1950s, South Korea was one of the poorer countries in the world, but now is an aid donor and one of the world's most developed nations. Buildings now consume about 24% of the energy in South Korea, compared to around 40% in other developed nations. Korean regulations from 2001 stipulated greater energy efficiency, so that insulation use was boosted. 97% of consumed energy in South Korea is imported, at a cost of over US$100bn per year. Organic insulation dominates the market, with 68% market share, with glass wool at 25% and mineral wool at 8%. Professor Kwon pointed out that vacuum insulated panels and aerogel blankets are starting to be used even in residential buildings in South Korea. Low-E insulation has been developed in South Korea, consisting of a foam lattice, faced by low emissivity aluminium foil on both sides. Enervac VIPs can provide the same insulation at 30mm thickness, as 240mm of EPS. Only 0.01-0.1% of the cost of an apartment building is insulation, compared to 1-3% for a house: in either case, insulation provides fast payback and continuing cost efficiency.
Sun Uk Kim of RIST, also from South Korea, next spoke on two products: styrofoam-like inorganic silica foam and anisotropic vermiculite board. Commercial silica gel is used as a starting material for silica foam, and the gel should have a particular moisture content, otherwise there will be either no foaming ( too dry) or severe cracking (too wet). Over- or under-foaming can be a problem during the manufacturing process, depending on the temperature of production. Even temperatures can be achieved using a rotary furnace: a preheating process takes the silica to around 400deg c, while the foaming process takes the material to over 1000deg c. The product has a density of 0.2g/cm3, with a cell size of 80-150 microns. Bricks made with silica foam, ceramic filler and binder have low thermal conductivity and have potential applications as fire doors, thermal or sound insulation or as an insulating filler for concrete. Kim also spoke about an insulating anisotropic vermiculite board, which uses aligned vermiculite particles to optimise the insulation properties of the board, to achieve thermal conductivity of 0.03-0.05 W/mK. A chemical rather than thermal exfoliation is used to achieve the orientation of the vermiculite particles.
Francesco Barzagli of STM Technologies then spoke on mineral wool production and the capture of CO2 to produce useful chemicals. Francesco pointed out that one third of the power of a fossil-fuel powered station would be used in a capture and sequestration process, effectively making the power station much less efficient. A number of processes have been used to capture CO2, with each process creating a variety of more or less useful and saleable by-products. CO2 can be transformed into a solid compound through absorption by ammonia in organic solvents, to produce ammonium carbamate, which can be used for NOx abatement, for soil remediation or in forward osmosis. It is also the intermediate product in the industrial production of urea. During questioning, Francesco suggested that around 1t of CO2 is produced during the production of one tonne of rockwool, an amount comparable to that created during the production of a tonne of cement. Technological solutions are emerging, but the economic stars also have to be aligned for the uptake of the technology.
Stephen Long of Ineos Styrenics next spoke about the legislative agenda that is coming down the road for the insulation industry in the EU, but which might eventually be applied worldwide. Stephen pointed out that the most crucial issue for all markets is the current depressed economic environment, followed by environmental pressures, energy supply issues and the maintenance of public safety and standards of living. The EU's 20/20/20 policy has been formulated to cut greenhouse gases, to increase the proportion of renewable energy used and to cut energy overall usage. Heating and cooling of buildings counts for around 25% of EU energy needs, so that insulation can have a huge impact. The Construction Products Regulations have been used to drive the freedom of internal markets, as well as the performance of materials and will become fully applicable in July 2013. Future developments will include the more widespread use of life cycle analysis for building materials including insulation. The Eco Design Directive is currently impacting and promoting the use of insulation in Europe, while the labelling regime is still in a state of flux but is moving towards EU-wide rationalisation. The EU's Energy Efficiency Action Plan is designed to ensure safe, secure, sustainable and affordable energy for all, partly through the reduction of energy consumption. However, the directive has been somewhat watered down during its passage onto the statue books. The Energy Efficiency in Buildings Directive will push all new-builds towards passive standards by 2018: Brussels has set the guidelines, and now member states are tasked with enacting the plans. The Waste Framework Directive mandates that prevention (of waste) is best, with disposal as the worst option. Stephen suggested that much more insulation will be required to be either reused or recycled in the future: the WBCSD has suggested that by 2050 society should produce no waste at all! Stephen concluded that the increased use of insulation will provide strong support for the EU's various energy and sustainability policies, as well as demonstrating good economics for states and users: for every euro invested in insulation, seven euros of value are created. The insulation industry should increase in size by about 30% over the next eight years in the EU, due to the drive towards energy efficiency in new-builds. However, this is the tip of the iceberg: by far the larger demand for insulation will come from renovation of existing buildings. If three percent of buildings are renovated and reinsulated each year, the insulation market would actually increase by 300% over a 30 year period. The actuality depends on legislation and on economic forces, including on energy prices.
Michel Cassart of Total spoke about his comapny's activities and pointed out that Total is not just an oil company, but is a substantial energy company, with significant shares in solar and alternative energy sources, including biomass, hydrogen, methanol and ethanol. He pointed out that construction habits and history define local insulation consumption and suggested that the global consumption of styrenes is growing, either as EPS (expanded) or XPS (extruded) polystyrenes. Raw polystyrene beads are supplied to the market, including the blowing agent and additives and then EPS producers apply steam to expand the beads. For XPS, solid pellets of crystal polystyrene are supplied to the market and producers then use a single step extrusion and milling process, allowing the use of propriety formulations. The choice of gas is dictated by blowing performance, insulation performance and ecological constraints and might be pentane, or other HFC or HCFCs, or even CO2 or other new newly-applied gases. Michel noted that as insulation becomes less and less dense, radiation can increasingly pass through the material: additives might then be used to block radiation transmittance through the insulation. In this way, less material can be used for a given level of insulation, or a higher level of insulation can be achieved for a given board thickness. Grey EPS, for example, has a lambda value 20% lower than equivalent white EPS. Michel announced the launch of Excell-R, a new grey EPS board with optimized R value.
Vadim Novikov of TechnoNicol then spoke on the impact of Russian legislation on the stone wool market in Russia. The market is expected to double from 2009 to 2016, to around 1.5Mt. TechnoNicol has six stonewool plants and six XPS plants in Russia and has around 39% of the stonewool market in Russia. A presidential decree of 2008 stipulated that the energy intensity of GDP should be 40% more efficient by 2020, compared to 2007. Apartment buildings with low energy efficiency will be penalised, under legislation copied from the EU. Technical regulations now limit the amount of flammable materials allowed during renovation works for different types of buildings. Vadim showed a chart outlining the legislation pertinent to the use of insulation in buildings: it was a complex diagram. A plethora of organisations are also involved in regulating the industry and the application of its products, including government, ministries, scientific institutions and NGOs. Vadim suggested that Russia's membership of the WTO might lead to increased competition with overseas insulation producers due to an increase in imports. Additionally, he suggested that there are already too many plants, with concomitant oversupply and low prices. Seasonal logistical problems continue to dog the insulation industry in Russia, both in terms of truck and rail transport. He suggested thta in both a positive and negative market development scenario, potential supply will still far exceed demand, by at least 0.300Mt in 2013 and increasing thereafter.
Domenico Disimino of Sulzer Chemtech introduced the Sulzer EPS melt impregnation process. He suggested that the logistic chain for EPS beads makes it difficult to customise the beads to specific customer requirements. A complex batch process is used in one type of suspension impregnation. On the other hand, the continuous melt impregnation process uses a polystyrene melt from commercial polystyrene, injects the pentane blowing agent directly into the melt, and ensures homogenisation until the melt is pelletised and dried to form pellets. The pellets are then sieved into separate size fractions and sold separately. Responding to increased requests from customers to produce their own resin, Sulzer developed the continuous melt impregnation process with static mixers, including the introduction of pigmented and flame-retardant EPS for building insulation. Static mixers have no moving parts, no maintenance, good laminar dispersal and mixing and low energy consumption. The Sulzer process is continuous and results in homogenous quality with narrow EPS micropellet size distribution and negligible water consumption. Graphite, carbon, mica or aluminium particles can be used to improve EPS R value, by increasing radiation absorption. Sulzer's improved pigment dispersion leads to lower additive consumption and higher R values. Domenico pointed out that the insulation industry needs to find a substitute for the commonly used hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD) fire retardant, due to its toxicity. Several alternatives have now been successfully tested on the pilot scale and the melt impregnation process allows high potential for HBCD substitution. Sulzer has additionally developed a new generation of EPS process suited to small scale production, from 0.5-3.0t/hour, jointly developed with the German extruder manufacturer Coperion. The company is currently developing a simplified one-step direct, same-recycle process for post-commercial and post-consumer waste. The resultant foam is found to have the same properties as materials produced with virgin raw materials. Future developments may include alternative polymers (PLA, HIPS etc), the reduction of pellet size to cup grade sizes and the development of new solutions for packaging and insulation.
Per Nissen of Qubica and Ayhan Gokbag of ODE Yalitim next spoke about factory automation possibilities. ODE was founded in 1985 and manufactures glass wool, XPS and other insulation materials. Qubica was formed as result of the consolidation of three Danish companies, Seelen, Univeyor and Nordplan. ODE wanted to automate part of its packaging system, to eliminate the use of a film layer, to reduce labour costs, to increase the visual quality of the product and to increase capacity. Qubica suggested a solution and after a process of negotiation, preliminary tests and iteration, final concept approval, manufacturing and factory acceptance tests, the machine became reality. Such was the innovation incorporated in the machine that it has now been patented.
Authors from Bila and AMV gave the final presentation of the day, speaking about high performance automation. Bila offers cold end solutions based on the latest technology. It is critically important to have a single project manager, and a single point of contact with the customer, to ensure clear communication. AMV has been developing glass wool machinery since the 1970s and is now owned fully by Glava. The company suggests that its equipment has an availability of 99.8%.
Gala Awards Dinner
A Gala Awards Dinner took place at the end of the first day of the conference, at the historic Latvian Society House in the centre of Riga, where guests were treated to Latvian food, drink, music and dancing.
The Global Insulation Awards 2012 were presented during the evening. Insulation company of the year was awarded to Paroc Oy of Finland, technical innovation of the year went to French company Fimec Technologies for its insulation insertion machines, insulation plant of the year was jointly awarded to Saint Gobain Isover's Orange plant and Glava's Norwegian plants, product of the year was awarded to Ineos Styrenics' EPS Silver insulation and Global Insulation personality of the year was awarded to Tim Swales for his tireless efforts to promote all kinds of insulation over the years.
Second day
On the second day of the conference, Govind Rauniyar of Ineos Styrenics Technology spoke about EPS Silver Insujet technology for enhanced loose fill cavity wall insulation. Govind started out by quoting BP's 2012 energy report, saying that global energy consumption will increase by 37% from 2012 to 2030. Reducing energy demand is an effective way to achieve resource efficiency and obviously, insulation is one of the most cost efficient ways of reducing energy demand. Loose fill cavity wall insulation can be used on both new-build and on renovation and retrofit projects. Ineos Styrenics has the best lambda white EPS grade, but today the insulation market calls for even better thermal insulation materials. EPS Silver has been developed and has a 20% better insulation performance than white EPS. Insujet is a proprietary technology, whereby EPS Silver polymer is used in combination with a specially-developed inorganic bonding agent and injected into a wall cavity using a modified filler gun to atomise the glue. This gives a higher performance and higher R value and cost efficiency than comparable systems. The company has made stringent efforts to ensure Insujet installation quality and traceability.
Mario Medina of the University of Kansas then spoke about phase change materials (PCMs) in combination with existing insulation materials. PCMs work by storing large amounts of heat when melting, which is later released when the PCMs solidify: the process must be cyclical. Many compounds have been used, including paraffins, hydrated salts and various mixtures. Structural insulation panel walls consist of two panels with an EPS board in the centre. Mario described his department's experimental set-up, whereby small houses are built of the materials under test, and are then heavily investigated with many sensors and instruments. To initially test PCM wall configurations, phase change materials were loaded into copper pipes and embedded into the wall systems. One configuration was a mixture of PCM mixed with rock wool, but this was not a huge success, since not all of the PCM then solidified during the cooling phase. What worked better was a reflective-foil-encapsulated PCM 'shield', whereby the PCM is sandwiched between reflective foils to form a thin (2mm) layer. The position of the shield matters, and depends on the climate that it is installed in. Mario showed that there was a substantial insulation effect, of between 20-62% difference in peak 'house' temperature using paraffin, but lower effects with hydrated salts (which have their own advantages and disadvantages). He concluded that PCMs reduce heat transfer rates, both in total heat transfer and peak heat transfer and produce more stable wall temperatures. Reflective shield encapsulation is the most effective means of installation of the technology. The technology will be installed on a large scale in a new building at the University of Kansas in 2013.
Nicolas Doare of Satimo next spoke about wet spot detection on continuous insulation production lines. Wet spots can occur after the curing oven and can migrate from the centre of the insulation to the surface after manufacture, causing a number of different problems. A non-destructive test for internal wet spots was developed by the company, using a microwave scanner operating at 9.4GHz. A transmitting antenna emits microwaves through the tested product and the response - dependent on the permissivity of the materials the microwaves pass through - is detected on a receiving array beneath the conveyor belt. Water has a high permissivity and the resultant phase shift in the signal received can be translated into a graphic or alarm signal, or the output can be used to trigger marking guns or the cutting saw. The system can be used on a wide variety of insulation materials, but has so far mostly been used on mineral wools.
The penultimate paper at the conference was given by Eerik Lundmark of Paroc, on fire safety in renovation. He suggested that fire hazards have tended to increase during renovation, due to the drive to renovate quickly and cheaply, due to inadequate quality of the work and due to insufficient safety measures. He also suggested that the introduction of new materials to construction has meant that flash-overs happen more quickly than previously. Combustible materials can also be exposed during renovation, whereas building regulations typically define sealed constructions and combustible materials can be stored in hazardous places during renovation. The presence of inhabitants can also increase fire risks during renovation, while in addition, safety systems are often switched off during renovation work, sometimes with disastrous consequences. Eerik suggested that the safety of renovation sites needs to be improved, that legislation and standards need to be developed, that fire safety audits should be mandatory after renovation and that cross-industry fire safety initiatives should be enacted.
Andrey Berestennikov of MetaDynea spoke about the resins market of Russia and Europe. The company has two plants in Russia with a total production capacity of 435,000t/year, of which 50,000t is insulation resin. Andrey suggested that competition between resin producers in Russia has been fierce and has been increasing over the years, despite the developing insulation market. MetaDynea's market share is around 45% for stone- and glass wool producers. Three types of resin have been produced: first generation resins based on phenol-alcohols; second generation resins based on organic and inorganic catalysts and now third generation resins with low free monomer levels and low formaldehyde. Use of the third generation resins is required for insulation producers to achieve the most recent environmental regulations. The technology of ultra-low emission resin production has been developed , based on KOH catalysts and the company will be ready to supply these resins to the market as soon as the market is ready for them!
At the end of the conference, which additionally featured plentiful networking sessions, awards were presented for the best presentations, based on delegate votes. Michel Cassart of Total was in third place with his presentation on foam innovation and in second place was Vadim Novikov of TechnoNicol for his paper on the Russian stone wool market. However, in first place, winning the award for the best presentation at the Global Insulation Conference in 2012, was Mario Medina from the University of Kansas, for his paper on innovative insulating phase change materials.
Delegates rated the conference highly both in terms of technical content and for its usefulness in making contacts in the insulation industry, and all promised to meet up again at the world's largest annual international meeting of insulation professionals, at the eighth Global Insulation Conference and Exhibition in Aachen, Germany, in September 2013. See you there!
Delegate comments:
• Very well organised conference: Participants from different types of businesses, which was good - something for everyone.
• Thank you for a nice experience!
• Nice conference, good chance to meet people, to discuss & to network - thanks.
• Good balance of participants from different industry sectors (manufacturers, machinery, academia, etc).
• Good conference - thank you!
• The speed-dating was a very good idea and should be used at future conferences
• The organisation, location and general guiding of the conference was all well done!
