Thesis
Novel development of eco-friendly porous thermal insulation materials and the application
- Creator
- Rights statement
- Awarding institution
- University of Strathclyde
- Date of award
- 2022
- Thesis identifier
- T16204
- Person Identifier (Local)
- 201892645
- Qualification Level
- Qualification Name
- Department, School or Faculty
- Abstract
- Inorganic thermal insulation materials, such as porous geopolymer and aerogel, have received unprecedented attention due to their excellent thermal insulation performance and non-burning characteristics. They are also more environmentally friendly compared to conventional synthetic insulation materials. The environmental benefit could be further enlarged when recycled glass fibre (rGF) is introduced in the geopolymer and aerogel system. Waste glass has been investigated extensively in the geopolymer system. However, the effect of recycled glass fibre on the thermal property of geopolymer is not commonly mentioned. In this thesis, the effect of rGF content on the mechanical and thermal properties of geopolymer was examined. Results indicated that the addition of rGF in geopolymer significantly increased the compressive strength (92 to 165 kPa) without diminishing the thermal performance (51.1 to 54.6 mW/m.K). In addition, a considerable amount of recycled glass fibres (25 g for three specimens) was reused. This paves a promising way to maximise environmental benefits and shows great potential in the thermal insulation field. Another avenue of research in this thesis was assessing the feasibility of fabricating short rGF mats and incorporating the prepared rGF mats with aerogel since these are rarely reported. In this thesis, rGF was used to fabricate the glass fibre mat via wet deposition and chemical bonding process to support the aerogel network. The mechanical and thermal performance of the rGF-aerogel composites was then characterised. The successfully prepared rGF mat provides a valuable reference for the preparation of recycled short fibre mats. The prepared rGF-aerogel had a low thermal conductivity (23.8 mW/m.K). Although the thermal conductivity of the rGF-aerogel is slightly higher than the prepared aerogel reinforced with the commercial GF mat (18.3 mW/m.K), it still paves a promising way to maximise environmental benefits and shows great potential in the thermal insulation field. The potential application of aerogel composites in packaging was also explored since it is rarely reported. In this thesis, an optimised mathematical model was derived by incorporating two mathematical models described in the literature to improve the accuracy of the calculated results. A number of experiments were then set up to validate the optimised model. The results showed that the insulating performance of packages insulated with aerogel composites was significantly improved (2 times better than expanded polystyrene). This finding suggests that aerogel composites have a great potential to satisfy the requirement of temperature control for long-haul transportation of fresh goods. The optimised model can be utilised as a cost-effective tool for packaging design concerning passive temperature control with improved accuracy.
- Advisor / supervisor
- Yang, Liu
- Resource Type
- Note
- Previously held under moratorium from 12th April 2022 until 12th April 2024.
- DOI
- Date Created
- 2021
- Funder
Las relaciones
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PDF of thesis T16204 | 2022-04-22 | Público | Descargar |