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Global Insulation Conference & Exhibition 2022
2 - 3 November 2022, Lisbon, Portugal

The 15th Global Insulation Conference, Exhibition and Awards took place 2-3 November at the Estoril Congress Centre near Lisbon, Portugal, alongside the 20th Global Gypsum Conference, and attracted around 370 delegates in total with around 50 exhibition stands. The conference will next take place in Chicago in 2023.

 
Yves Bromehead, a building materials market specialist, kicked-off the insulation-specific lecture programme with a presentation on insulation demand, regulation and competitive dynamics. He suggested that the Covid pandemic was a bonanza for the insulation industry, since lockdowns caused home to become the absolute centre of people’s lives, and household savings reached an all-time high - significant amounts of that time and money were expended on home improvements and on insulation investment. European building permits spiked through the early part of Covid, apart from Italy, France and Spain, which had particularly hard lockdowns including on construction. The US also saw very strong levels of housing starts over the period. These levels of activity have fed through - so far - to healthy levels of profit for insulation-players, on the back of continuing pricing strength or ‘greedflation’ as Yves put it. However, it is likely to be more challenging for insulation producers in the coming months in light of today’s inflation levels, higher interest and mortgage rates and a squeeze on household budgets. High levels of inventory may also further impede future profit margins. Both European and US housing starts have collapsed over the last few months and Yves forecast a tough situation for insulation demand in 2023. A chink of light in the forecast may be that higher energy prices will spur a renovation wave in the short term, while ever-stronger energy-efficiency regulations and national renovation plans will strongly support insulation demand in the medium to longer term. Industrial production capacity and labour shortages will present bottlenecks to future growth. Yves also warned that the green image of insulation may be under greater scrutiny in the future. He finally pointed out that the insulation industry, especially in Europe, is already hugely consolidated, which makes it hugely attractive as a takeover target by other building materials companies, private equity and venture capital.

Grazyna Michener of Polychemtech gave the next presentation, on the importance of ‘size’ in insulation foams. The well-known Knudsen effect shows that the smaller the size of pores in an insulating material, the lower the contribution of convection in gases in the pores. Grazyna showed that for every foam there is a an optimum density to reduce conduction, while cell size, shape, cell wall thickness and other factors also control the insulation’s performance. In lower density foams, pores may be more open, or absent, instead being in the form of struts, cables, tubes, fibres, strands, plates or meshes - each of which has its own advantages and disadvantages, including effects on Mie scattering (where the size of scattering particles is similar to the wavelength of the incident radiation). She showed how the performance of foams can be finely tuned, according to their environment of operation, such as at low or high temperatures.
 
Andreas Guertler of the European Industrial Insulation Foundation (EiiF) spoke about the work that the non-profit organisation (NGO) does in promoting the deployment of industrial insulation. He set the scene for his argument by offering some headline reasons for the recent spike in energy costs in Europe, declaring that in a study the EiiF found a potential energy saving of 160MWh from industry in the European Union. He then presented a number of industrial case studies from the foundation’s TIPCHECK programme to show how installing technical insulation could help end-users save money. In one example, installing insulation on the 4000m2 roof of a heated oil tank could significantly reduce the facility’s energy costs. Installing Energy Class G insulation could deliver a payback in less than two-and-a-half years and installing Energy Class A insulation could do the same in less than one year. Guertler then raised example of new legislation promoting industrial energy efficiency in both Germany and the Netherlands. He finished by explaining how TIPCHECK offers energy audits and inspections and detailed the foundation’s digital tools including a website-based technical insulation estimation service and a mobile-phone application tool.

Bruno Bach Jensen from Tentoma promoted his company’s RoRo StretchPack packaging product with case studies from two insulation producers in Finland. At Rukki’s Alajärvi plant the producer was looking to keep its sandwich panels waterproof during subsequent storage at construction sites. It also desired tighter packaging to prevent the trailing of film during transportation by truck and to further decrease water ingress during product movement. After a new Tentoma packaging machine was installed, the packaging capacity increased by 40%, less time was spent changing film rolls and the ability to print the company’s logo on the packaging was also added. In Bach Jensen’s second example at Isover’s Forssa mineral wool plant, the ability of the RoRo StretchPack to take up less space compared to a regular packaging line and a heat shrink oven was a contributing factor to its installation. Other benefits that were outlined included less film usage, energy savings from not using an oven and tighter packaging during transportation. Bach Jensen concluded his talk by explaining how RoRo StretchPack uses less film than other products by stretching instead of shrinking, with certain customers reporting savings of up to 60% of film. Packaging in this way also saves energy compared to heat shrinking. One weakness of the process that was mentioning included higher capital expenditure of equipment and a slightly higher polyethylene (PE) film price.

After lunch, Morten Seeberg and Martin Valgren from Qubiqa presented on their company’s recent developments on ways to boost insulation sustainability and productivity in cold-end handling. Martin spoke first, regarding the ways that European plastic waste taxes, some already in place, are affecting insulation packaging trends. With an EU-wide tax for plastic waste set at Euro450/t soon to be implemented, he agued the case for thinner films, including machine direction orientation (MDO) film approaches that allow up to 600% stretching without compromising integrity. A UK-wide tax of GBP200/t is already in place for plastic waste that contains less than 30% recycled content. Martin provided case-studies from Sweden and the UK that showed how MDO films and Qubiqa equipment could provide a return on investment in just five months. Morten then spoke on the subject of machine automation and connectivity, introducing Qubiqa’s approach to digital twinning, the use of virtual reality (for example in maintenance and problem-solving applications) and documentation / online access to machines. Morten explained how it can be hard for equipment manufacturers to gain digital access to operators’ equipment for optimisation and fault analysis, due to difficulty establishing trust. This element of the presentation led to particularly animated discussion with the assembled insulation plant operators.
 
The next presentation was another given by two presenters, Manuela Mora and Martina Pellegrino from Bocedi srl. They spoke on the topic of Bocedi’s stretch hooder technology, starting with a short video. The Bocedi stretch hooder is the largest on the market, able to accommodate pallets (and double-stacked pallets) up to 3600mm x 1800mm across and 3000mm tall. There are a wide range of wrapping options, including conventional pallet wrapping, under-pallet wrapping, pallet-less wrapping and systems where the insulation material itself is used as a beam. The discussion touched on several elements of the previous presentation, including the potential effects of using recycled content in Bocedi’s equipment, which can already handle 30% recycled content. Tests are ongoing with recycled content up to 50%.

After the first day’s programme, delegates boarded buses to attend the Awards Dinner at Arriba, Guincho, a venue perched on a cliff-top overlooking the Atlantic, arriving just in time to see the sunset. The Global Insulation Awards 2022 were presented at the event.

Alessandro Gullà from AWS Corporation was next to speak, on the topic of wet electrostatic precipitator (WESP) technology for insulation manufacturing plants, specifically the company’s ‘Electroclean’ WESP. The first WESP installed in the insulation sector was at a plant in Chile, with dozens more subsequently installed, predominantly in Europe. Alessandro outlined the high performance of WESP systems, which have no moving parts. This results in low maintenance needs and low operating costs, increasingly important in today’s high-cost energy market. Before installing a new WESP, AWS can perform tests using its mobile test unit. Alessandro provided case-studies from the glass wool sector, in which an AWS WESP achieved dust emissions below 5mg/Nm³, ammonia emissions below 10mg/Nm³, phenol emissions below 5mg/Nm3 and volatile organic compounds at less than 50mg/Nm3. A series of CFD illustrations showed how AWS can adjust air flow for maximum efficiency, depending on the application.

Tom Redant, co-founder of Hammer-IMS, then spoke on the topic of ‘M-Rays’ for inline density and basis-weight measurements for polystyrene and for glass-fibre based insulation wools. Tom’s well-received presentation explained that ‘M-Rays’ is a term used by the company to describe electromagnetic waves with wavelengths in the 1-10mm range, which are also used in full-body airport scanners. Tom outlined how M-Rays slow down when passing through insulating materials. By reflecting M-Rays back to a detector, it is possible to detect the time of flight, and hence thickness of the material. When material thickness is well controlled, this can be used as a proxy for density. Tom outlined the advantages of using M-Rays compared to more common radioactive methods, including greater accuracy and safety. Tom concluded his presentation by touching on a number of case-studies from insulation, plastics and other sectors.

The next two presentations detailed research projects from the INNODAEMM (innovative thermal insulation materials) network. Tanja Graef from the Technical University of Dortmund presented the findings of the fly ash vacuum insulation panel (FA-VIP) project whereby an alternative material for the core of a vacuum insulation panel (VIP) was tested. The porous core of a VIP is typically composed of pyrogenic silica but this is energy-intensive to manufacture. Other issues with VIPs include the production cost, poor lifespan and inability to customise after creation. The project tested the substitution of proportions of fly ash from hard coal, brown coal and rice husk ash along with pyrogenic silica and fibres at the start of the VIP production process before the core is pressed. Previous studies had identified low heat transfer, small pore diameters and the processibility of the panel core as being a challenge to core substitution so these were the main areas of scrutiny. FA-VIP found that a fly ash substitution rate of 40 – 60% worked best for density, processability and thermal conductivity although the latter was at least one-and-a-half times worse than that of a common VIP ( 4.2mW/(m K) compared to 6mW/(m K) ). However, a 60% fly ash substituted VIP with a thickness of 29mm and an area of 1m² cost Euro39 compared to Euro55.5 for a normal VIP.

Mathias Klinger of the Institut für Strukturleichtbau und Energieeffizienz (ISE) followed Graef’s findings with another INNODAEMM project, this time on the SUHITEMPIN (sustainable high-temperature insulation) initiative to develop a high temperature thermal insulation material using waste silica fibres. The goals for this project included creating a material that could handle operation at temperatures of up to 1200°C, have a density of approximately 250kg/m3, a heat conductivity of 0.2W/(m K) at 1000 – 1200°C and be relatively lightweight and cheap. One of the industrial project partners was ASGLAWO technofibre, a producer of fibre-based insulation and the source of the offcuts the project used. The project worked its way up from the laboratory to the technical scale using mixers provided by another project partner, Buckau-Wolf. The first results of the material development contained 67.5% of waste calcinated silica fibre content along with cement, chalk, alumina powder and water. The materials were mixed, cast into a mould, cut into slices or blocks and then dried at 110°C for 48 hours.  The project was ongoing at the time of the conference with SUHITEMPIN’s density and porosity within target but the thermal conductivity still too high at 0.4W/(m K). Applications that the material is being considered for include fire protection for cabling, ducts and column cladding in buildings and as an insulating brick in industrial furnaces or kilns. Its benefits are its low cost, relatively high insulating ability and low weight however it is also a brittle material and this is being considered with regards to its applications.

Robert McCaffrey of Global Gypsum Magazine gave a late addition to the programme in the form of his presentation on how the cement industry is changing. His argument was that major cement companies have previously comprised combinations of adjacent production processes centred upon the key steps of cement, aggregate and concrete manufacture because this is where the best earnings reside. However, a mounting list of risks including increasing global carbon and fuel prices and recession fears may be encouraging the larger multinational cement companies to diversify away from cement, aggregate and concrete into connected sectors such as insulation, gypsum wallboard, construction chemicals, roofing and more. Rob McCaffrey gave examples from Holcim, Cemex, CRH, Heidelberg Materials and Votorantim Cimentos and also noted a trend from some of them to divest away from markets in some developing areas. He ended by pointing out that Lafarge’s decision to sell its wallboard business in the early 2010s might come to be viewed with hindsight as a mistake. The first audience question asked which wallboard and/or insulation company might be acquired by a cement company, leading McCaffrey to suggest that an answer “can be best discussed over several beers.”

Jari Kaasinen from Coldins spoke about a new insulation material concept which conducts heat energy preferentially in one direction. Much discussion took place among delegates about this early-stage technological development.
 
Meghan Lamm of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory gave the final presentation in the programme, on her laboratory’s attempt to make an effective thermoplastic insulation material with lower environmental impact compared to ‘traditional’ polystyrene. A polymer matrix was chosen called Elvacite 4021, which had a variety of advantages. A wide variety of foaming agents were assessed, and a liquid (Expancel, from AzkoNobel) was finally chosen. Porous hollow glass spheres were used as an insulating filler. Extensive laboratory work indicated the best dosages to create an optimised insulation material, which is competitive with commercial thermoplastic foams in compressive strength and thermal resistivity, without using harmful blowing agents.

Insulation Panel Discussion

After the final presentation, the insulation lecture theatre was packed for a 30 minute discussion on the Future of Insulation, featuring panellists Grazyna Mitchener (PolyChemTech), Andreas Gürtler (European Industrial Insulation Foundation), Andrew Kerr (Superglass Ltd) and Yves Bromehead (industry expert). The discussion was split equally into three questions: 1. Where will growth come from? 2. What limits growth? 3. New Materials - Evolution or Revolution? There was animated discussion in all sections, with numerous contributions from the audience. The consensus was that insulation would continue to be driven by its existing core markets in Europe and North America, with growing contributions from elsewhere. Indeed in Europe, there currently exists too little production capacity, with Andrew Kerr pointing out that supply chain issues now mean that building new capacity could now take up to five years, compared to two before the Covid-19 pandemic. Andreas Gürtler called for greater national government clarity on industrial insulation. In terms of new products, Grazyna Mitchener outlined a 'tick-list’ of requirements for a ’step-change insulation material’ noting that the promises of vacuum insulation panels and aerogels had broadly gone unrealised. From a practical standpoint, it was pointed out by a member of the audience that even the best-performing materials can be let down by poor installation, so the focus for efficiency should lie with installation. Several panelists identified a lack of knowledge in developing markets as a major contributor to poor insulation uptake and performance. The panel discussion raised a number of other points and will be repeated at future edition of the conference.

Farewells and prizes

The awards for best presentation were presented at the Farewell Party at the spectacular Estoril Congress Centre. In third place was Meghan Lamm of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, with Morten Seeberg and Martin Valgren from Qubiqa in second place. The best presentation prize went to Bruno Bach Jensen from Tentoma.

The conference was strongly praised by attendees, with 91% being satisfied with the event’s Covid testing regime, and others lauding the networking opportunities, gala dinner and technical programme.

The 16th Global Insulation Conference will take place on 31 October-1 November 2023 in Chicago.

Image gallery for the the 14th Global Insulation Conference and Exhibition which took place in LIsbon, Portugal on 2 - 3 November 2022.

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.

View the image gallery

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!