Project description
PUR for improved thermal insulation
Energy consumption from buildings is responsible for a third of CO2 emissions in Europe, of which space heating represents 65 %. As such, the EU has established important measures to reach an increase of 32.5 % in energy efficiency by 2030 and promoted European construction companies to move towards nearly zero-energy buildings (nZEBs), seeking out renewable materials with high thermal performance properties. However, the most efficient of insulating materials – polyurethane foam (PUR) – is flammable and produces extremely toxic fumes when burning. Those issues have been solved by INDRESMAT through the EU-funded SAFE-PUR project that has developed a new type of fire-resilient bio-PUR insulating foams. Therefore, SAFE-PUR improves thermal insulation in buildings while it improves passive fire protection by up to 80 % together with a decrease of the carbon footprint of insulation materials.
Objective
Nearly Zero Energy Buildings are nowadays the focus of construction companies since EU Directives aim to reduce the Carbon emissions to atmosphere. Buildings are responsible of 28% of all CO2 emissions with space heating accounting 65% of all energy consumed. The need for reducing heat leaking through a better insulation of constructions is a key strategy to reduce the CO2 emissions responsible of the Climate Change. On the other hand, the rationalization on the consumption fossil resources through the use of renewable and biobased raw materials is of a strong interest for customers and end-users in construction market. In addition to the thermal performance and sustainability, insulating materials must demonstrate a safe use, especially when a fire takes place.
Polyurethane foams (PUR) are the most efficient insulating materials used in construction. However, the main critical problem for them to become the preferred insulation material is a dangerous behavior when exposed to flames due to their high flammability and fast fire propagation, as well as the high amount of extremely toxic fumes released by PUR materials hen burning.
To address these challenges, INDRESMAT has developed SAFE-PUR, a new top class of biobased PUR insulating foams that solve the main critical problems related with the lack of passive fire safety of conventional PUR foams. SAFE-PUR foams offer the following results: 1) improve the Thermal Insulation in buildings 15-20 %, 2) increase the Passive Fire Protection 70-80% and 3) reduce the C-footprint 60-70% of insulation materials compared to conventional of PUR foams.
Our target is to reach a 12% of our Serviceable Operative Market partnering with a top chemical manufacturer of PUR formulations interested in SAFE-PUR foams to achieve a large-scale manufacturing representing a potential revenue of 56 M€/y in the next 5 years. After market consolidation our company will develop flexible foams for household, automotive, naval & aerospace.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- natural scienceschemical sciencespolymer sciencespolyurethane
- natural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesatmospheric sciencesclimatologyclimatic changes
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Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinator
6167 RD Geleen
Netherlands
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.