Global Insulation Conference & Exhibition 2019
25 - 26 September 2019, Ljubljana, Slovenia
The 14th Global Insulation Conference and Exhibition has successfully taken place in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The 15th Global Insulation Conference will take place in September 2020 in Lisbon, Portugal.
Pictured above: Conference delegates visit the Knauf Insulation Experience Centre at Skofja Loka.
Introduction
The 14th Global Insulation Conference and Exhibition welcomed nearly 140 delegates from 26 countries to Ljubljana, capital of Slovenia. The event also showcased the equipment and services of 20 exhibitors from Europe and beyond. Networking opportunities were built in to the conference programme and many delegates lauded the quality of new contacts made at the event.
Jure Šumi of Knauf Insulation opened the conference with a welcome in Slovenian to all delegates. Jure introduced the Knauf Group and focused on the company’s insulation activities. The local factory Knauf Insulation Škofja Loka (location of the Knauf Insulation Experience Centre visited by conference delegates the previous day) has three stonewool production lines, 380 employees and had a turnover of Euro127m in 2018. Jure next spoke about Urbanscape, a new environmental use for mineral wool products. The first green roofs - the Hanging Gardens of Babylon - were built in 500BCE, while green roofs have been used in Scandinavia for hundreds of years partly for their insulating properties. Mineral fibres have been used as a growing medium for more than 50 years, particularly for roses and tomatoes. Knauf has developed Urbanscape as a 100% fibre zero-additive growing medium for sedum and other plants. The material also has a water retention role, helping to reduce local flooding. The green roofs are said to sequester carbon, capture airborn pollution and dust and also provide additional habitat for pollinators. Green roofs can bring major energy savings during summer periods due to shading and evapotranspiration. Studies show that the efficiency of solar PV panels can be improved by 16% by cooling them by planting greenery around them, using Urbanscape. ‘Greenable’ flat roofs offer a huge opportunity in Europe.
Martin Wiesweg of IHS Markit next gave an overview of economics and markets. “A well-supplied oil market will constrain oil prices in the foreseeable future,” he said. The base cost for all insulation materials is expected to remain stable at a relatively low level. Softening global demand is restraining global commodity prices. European growth continues to slow, with some economies, including Italy and even Germany, moving into recession mode. Turkey has suffered sharp declines in demand, which has curtailed insulation exports from the rest of Europe. Global construction spending is increasing overall, being led by Asia. European construction spending growth has been weak, partly due to very low population growth. 12Mt of EPS production capacity has been installed worldwide, but demand is only around half of that level, leading to pricing weakness, although the supply/demand balance varies regionally. Insulation typically uses around 75% of all EPS produced, with much of the rest used in packaging, particularly for white goods. Chinese GDP growth is softening, partly due to the ongoing trade war, but the government has been and will continue to employ various stimulus packages. In Europe, EPS has a market share of around 26%, compared to 36% for glass wool and 25% for mineral wool. Due to increasing energy prices (which will hit other insulation types more heavily), EPS is expected to increase its market share in the next five years. EPS recycling is expected to increase overall, particularly through chemical recycling (using depolymerisation, dissolution, gasification or pyrolysis).
Benjamin Bizjan from the University of Ljubljana next spoke about recent advances in mineral wool fiberisation research. Around 5Mt of mineral wool is produced each year in the EU and with energy use of 6-15GJ/t and >600kg of CO2/t of insulation produced, around 3Mt of CO2 is produced by the industry in Europe each year. In fact, 25-40% of the melt from the furnace is not fiberised, but instead results in ‘shots’ which do not add to insulation performance. Although the technology of fiberisation is seemingly mature, that does not mean that there is no room for improvement in the process. Research tools include the use of high-speed cameras, aerodynamic measurements on spinners and collection chambers and testing of fibre properties. Faster wheel rotation yielded thinner fibres and a lower mass fraction of shots. However, if rotation is too fast or if the melt is too viscous, melt adhesion to the wheel surface is reduced, leading to a loss of melt and reduced fiberisation efficiency: A sweet-spot of wheel rotation must be identified. In addition, the angle of impingement of the melt on the wheels has a strong effect on fiberisation efficiency, with experiments suggesting that an angle close to 30degrees as optimum in these experiments.
Jernej Pavlič from Izoteh next spoke about a chemigraphic tool for the optimisation of stone-wool batch recipes. Raw material compositions and the melting process affect the chemical composition of the final stone wool. Jernej showed how complex mixtures of compositions can be grouped, according to their effects on the final melt, to allow optimisation of ingredient ratios. He pointed out that although fibres are formed of amorphous non-crystalline material, the chemicals still form polymers, the specific forms of polymer depending on their composition.
Cristina Saiz Arroyo of CellMat Technologies next gave details of how to reduce the thermal conductivity of polymeric foams. VIPs, aerogels and nanocellular foams are among the advanced insulation materials that have been developed in the last two decades. Cristina pointed out that the conductivity of a foam is controlled by the thermal conductivity of the solid phase and of the gas phase, thermal radiation and convection within cells. Many different physical and chemical parameters control these attributes, resulting in a very complex network of possibilities. Foaming mechanisms can be used to control a number of different factors influencing lambda. Cell size and anisotropy can be measured using image analysis software, while computer tomography can be used to calculate cell shapes and other measurements. Foaming processes start with a polymer/gas solution followed by nucleation. Bubbles grow due to the effect of the blowing agent, but this will be followed by degeneration mechanisms and finally by stabilisation. Control of each of these mechanisms allows a manufacturer to optimise thermal conductivity. In addition, a number of different additives, including carbon black and other nanoparticles, can be used to reduce thermal conductivity of polymeric foams.
Anders Andersen of Qubiqa next spoke about future trends in the automation of the cold end of insulation production. The previous motivators were to save money, for improved ergonomics and improvements in health and safety. However, the latest motivation for automation is the fact that workers are increasingly hard to find: fewer of the younger generation aspire to work on the shop floor in a factory, since low-skilled work is not popular and potential workers instead educate themselves to go for higher-skilled jobs. The current level of automation is already quite high and has high levels of reliability, but further automation will be concentrated on the avoidance of poor quality inputs into the system, through the extensive use of sensors for inlet product control. Machine monitoring, using cycle counts, power consumption, temperature alerts and vibration alerts will be subject to big data analysis, leading to an overview of system stops and elaboration of root causes, while also allowing predictive and preventative maintenance. Driverless forklift trucks are one obvious area for ‘dehumanisation’ of industrial processes. Mixed Reality (MR) is under advanced development and may be used in the future for training or to augment workers undertaking maintenance. A ‘hololens’ may be used to beam live pictures to remote experts to aid in maintenance.
Allen Detlefsen from Tentoma A/S next spoke about means of reducing environmental impact in the insulation packaging process. Film packaging for insulation materials protects the product against dirt and rain, while allowing for clear branding and product compression for transport optimisation. Both bio-based, biodegradable and partly recycled film materials are now available. Fossil-free sugar cane-based polyethylene films are about to be introduced onto the market. Using stretch packaging involves a lower mass of film compared to shrink packaging (for example 105g rather than 185g for shrink film for a mineral wool insulation batt), while also avoiding the need for a shrink oven, saving 200MWh/year. One case study showed savings of around Euro200,000 per year by using stretch rather than shrink packaging.
Dan Lauridsen of the Danish Institute of Fire Technology (DBI) gave the final presentation on the first day of the conference, on the use of small-scale fire tests and advanced simulation tools to improve insulation product development. Using fire tests on a smaller scale allows more of them to be incorporated into larger combined models and reduces time to market and product development cost.
Gala Dinner and Global Insulation Awards
The Gala Dinner and Global Insulation awards took place at Ljubljana Castle. TechnoNicol of Russia was voted the recipient of the best insulation company of the year, Knauf won best technical innovation for its Jet Spray-on thermal insulation and Münstermann won for best supplier of equipment and/or services. Knauf also won ‘best insulation plant’ for its new Illange mineral wool plant in France, while Paroc (now part of Owens Corning) won the best insulation product for its Paroc Light Marine insulation. Davide Maiello of Knauf and Udo Goedecke of Wacker won in the category of ‘Global Insulation Personality of the Year.’
Conference second day
On the second day of the conference, Marc Fixaris of ArcelorMittal spoke about the use of air-cooled blast furnace slag, basic oxygen furnace slag and electric arc furnace slag as raw materials for the production of insulation. Slag can be used to take the place of some of the usual basalt in rockwool production. Marc made a final suggestion that insulation producers should consider the possibility of making insulation using molten slag, with no solidification stage in between, and he requested interest in an ongoing R&D project to this effect. He stated that the concept has already been proved by a manufacturer in Kazakhstan.
Ethel Garlaschi of Greenchemicals subsequently spoke about improved flame retardant formulations for styrenic and polyurethane foams, suggesting the use of phosphates instead of halogenated compounds. Phosphates have the effect of producing a thick char layer which inhibits further combustion. Ethel gave details of a new reactive halogen-free polyol polyester flame retardant for XPS and EPS. Ethel concluded her presentation by stating that new techniques are being developed to deactivate HBCD to allow for the recycling of halogenated polymer-based insulation.
Next up was Andrey Titov of TechnoNicol, a major Russian producer of both inorganic and organic insulation materials, and his co-author Sergey Leonov of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, speaking on the possibility of using an in-vitro test for bio-soluble mineral wool. TechnoNicol has three export-oriented factories in Russia, with 30 new recipes of mineral wools each year: each must be tested for compliance with safety regulations including bio-solubility. At the moment, animal studies are used, at great cost and with long duration, not to mention the impact on the animals used in testing. However, there are differences in bio persistence of man-made vitreous fibres in difference species, suggesting that an in-vitro test (‘in laboratory conditions’ as opposed to in-vivo, or an ‘in life’ test) should be developed. For such a test to be considered valid, dissolution rates, morphological and chemical changes of fibres must be investigated at a variety of pH levels and with simulation of both lung fluid chemistry and the chemistry found within cells. To this end, glass wool, slag wool and stone wool samples were tested in a variety of pH levels, both with and without the presence of oxidisers. Fibres should show signs of decay as an indication of non-persistence. The fast, simple and relatively low-cost tests can give a rough estimation of the necessity for further in-vivo biopersistence studies.
Michael Schumm of Saint-Gobain Isover gave a presentation on ‘Vacubäude’ or insulated concrete panels. These are designed to be super-insulating, load-bearing, switchable, durable and low cost. The basic idea is to take two slabs of ultra-high performance concrete, with a core layer of mineral wool, seal the panels, and then connect the panels to a pump which restores the vacuum as required. The interior surfaces of the concrete slabs should be coated with a layer of epoxy to make them gas-tight. The glass wool layer is used to reduce radiation transfer between the interior surfaces of the concrete slabs, to a lower level than if there were just vacuumed alone. “It is not a simple matter to seal the panels,” stated Michael, and further work on this aspect of the Vacubäude project is required. Of course, the energy consumption of the pump must be lower than the energy saved by the insulating panel.
Stefan Peterek of the RWTH University Aachen gave the final presentation at the conference, on the development of a new material for high temperature insulation based on silica aerogels. Both organic (for example cellulose) and inorganic materials can be used to make aerogels, but they have the disadvantage of being brittle, even collapsing with vibrations. Stefan stated that threads of glass-based aerogels can be made to have significant robustness, even being amenable to being woven into products or being made available in the form of non-wovens. The fibres have low thermal conductivity, are resistant to high temperatures (>800C) and are flexible but have low compressive strength, although further developments to improve their properties are ongoing. The product is likely to have applications in high value, high performance sectors such as automotive and aerospace.
Conference prizes and farewell
At the farewell lunch, prizes for the three best presentations were awarded, as voted by delegates. In third place was Benjamin Bizjan of Ljubljana University for his paper on mineral wool research and in second place were Titov and Leonov with their paper on in-vitro testing for biopersistence of mineral wool fibres. In first place was Ethel Gerlaschi of Greenchemicals for her paper on new non-halogenated flame retardants for styrenic and polyurethane foams.
The event was rated highly by delegates for the quality of networking and for technical content.
What the delegates said about the Global Insulation Conference 2019 in Ljubljana:
- Very well organised and the speed-dating was great!
- Thanks for the kind and attentive service and attention from the whole team!!
- Lovely dinner at Ljubljana Castle.
- Very well organised
- Appreciated the use of slido.com for questions
- Very good idea to visit the Knauf Insulation Experience Centre
- I met so many technical people and potential customers
- So many potential customers come to this famous insulation industry conference
- Overall very interesting * big warm applause *
- Very good organisation
- Very satisfied
- I would like to express our appreciation of Global Insuation conference! It was perfectly organized and very useful!
