Energy Efficient Outer Wall Glazing with Nanogel™

Insulating panels of polycarbonate twin-wall sheet filled with Nanogel™ translucent aerogel from Cabot offer superior thermal and sound insulation while at the same time providing even and pleasant “museum quality” diffused light. In a recent successful application, Nanogel filled PC panels were installed between two layers of hardened Profilit™ profiled glass to clad the walls on the front and rear of two upper storeys added to the historic Ibscherhaus in Munich, Germany.

The building, located in the Schwabing district of Munich, is named after the well-known Ibscher trading family, who ran a hardware and household supply business there until the 1970s. A new owner had acquired the building on the understanding that he would modernize it and add some new storeys in an appropriate architectural style.

Not Achievable with Conventional Insulated Double Glazing

The concept called for two additional storeys that must not only comply with the required building and construction regulations for thermal insulation, but also offer good sound insulation against the noise from the busy street below. At the same time, the owner wanted to achieve a maximum amount of natural daylight inside the building. These seemingly contradictory requirements could not be met with conventional glazing materials.

The project planning was commissioned to Eberhard Steinert, a chartered engineer formerly with FSR-Architekten München and now with baustein-architekten, an architectural partnership with offices in the Upper Bavarian town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen.

“After repeatedly reading about Nanogel in the technical press, the building’s owner and I visited the Bau 2005 exhibition in order to examine the potential use of this innovative material for our demanding application in greater detail,” says Steinert. “The façade or wall glazing itself was meant to be executed in Profilit profiled glass from Pilkington. However, the transparent insulating materials that we originally considered for the center layer did not provide the required sound insulation. Eventually, Nanogel emerged as the only solution; a decision confirmed by our building and construction physicist with active support from Cabot.”

The new wall surface to be glazed on both sides of the building comprised a total area of 105 square meters. The glazing system, as designed by Haselbeck+Königseder and installed by Glasbau Oberhauser (both from Lower Bavaria), consisted of two shells of hardened Profilit K 25/60/7 “U” shaped profiles in maximum lengths of 4,460 mm, with an insulating center layer of 25 mm thick polycarbonate twin-wall sheet filled with Nanogel.

On site, the glazing was installed from inside out, with the insulating panels cut to size and filled with Nanogel, ready for installation by Cabot in Frankfurt.

Nanogel Filled Panels Enhance Thermal Insulation by >25%

The resulting glass panels excel with ideal technical values, fully meeting the building and construction regulations as well as the owner’s specifications. With Nanogel, the insulating panels reduce the U-value of 1.7 (W/m2.K) offered by the profiled glass to 1.25 (W/m2.K). The sound insulation was improved by 4 dB to a “remarkably silent” 46 dB. At a light transparency of 30%, the total solar energy transmission value is 53%.

“The favorable insulation values and particularly the low weight of Nanogel permit flexible designs with relatively thin wall sections,” Steinert emphasizes. “In addition, the aerogel filler provides a pleasantly even and non-dazzling spread of daylight, resulting in an overall outstanding basic brightness in the rooms behind the wall glazing.”

baustein-architekten focuses its activities on residential and commercial as well as sports and public buildings. In view of the flexible processability up to completely prefabricated glazing or insulation panels, Steinert sees a wide range of uses for Nanogel in all of these areas.

The aerogel weighs only 70 g per liter and consists of a network of nano-porous particles that has an air content of 97%, but which prevents the flow of air. The balance of thermal and sound insulation as well as light distribution achieved by this structure outperforms the potential of most other insulating materials on the market today. Architects can benefit greatly from these properties wherever new design solutions are needed for maximizing natural daylight levels and energy efficiency.

In addition, Nanogel is permanently water-repellant and thus resistant to moisture and mildew formation. The feather-light, translucent aerogel was developed by Cabot based on patented surface modification and fine particle technology. It is manufactured exclusively in Cabot’s dedicated plant in Frankfurt/Main, Germany.

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Notes for editors

About Cabot Corporation

Cabot Corporation (www.cabot-corp.com) is a $1.8 billion global specialty chemical and materials company headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts U.S.A. Cabot's major products are carbon black, fumed silica, inkjet colorants, capacitor materials, and cesium formate drilling fluids. Cabot is also a leader in the production of fine, structured, sub-micron particles, comprising carbon, metals and metal oxides developed to enhance the performance of a variety of products, including rubber, adhesives, inks, microelectronics, and plastics. Cabot operates 44 manufacturing plants located in 23 countries around the world.

Nanogel has been cited for being ‘the best translucent insulation for glazing in the world’ by the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) Journal Innovation Award 2004 and the ‘Best Innovative Product for Energy Savings’ at Bau 2005, Germany’s leading building and construction exhibition.

Profilit™ is a trademark of Pilkington plc.

Nanogel™ is a registered trademark of Cabot Corporation.