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Smart Materials Congress 2019
Nano Research and Applications
ISSN: 2471-9838
Page 32
August 01-02, 2019
Dublin, Ireland
Smart Materials and
Structures
8
th
International Conference on
Andrea Cacciatore et al., Nano Res Appl 2019, Volume 05
Thermochromic cement-based envelopes as dynamic cool
materials for buildings’ energy efficiency
Andrea Cacciatore, Claudia Capone, Tiziana De Marco
and
Flavio Rampinelli
HeidelbergCement Group, Italy
T
his paper reports a selection of results achieved in the
framework of the Italian funded project “COOL-IT”.
The study evaluates thermal/optical characteristics of
experimental cement-based thermochromic envelopes
for buildings energy efficiency applications. In Europe,
50% of the energy consumption of the building sector,
and related GHG emissions, concerns heating and
cooling systems consumptions, with cooling energy
demand expected to rise significatively by 2050. The
design and use of selected cool concrete building
envelopes for future sustainable cities can contribute
to decrease buildings energy loads - mainteining
indoor thermal comfort too-as well as to mitigate
urban heat island phenomenon. Within this context,
the use of thermochromic cementitious materials
for buildings energy saving has been investigated.
Experiments with cement-based coatings and mortars
have been performed, incorporating microincapsulated
thermochromic pigments (commercially available) of
organicnaturehavingaselected transition temperatureof
31°C. At lower temperatures, the thermocromic products
appear grey (Dark Phase) while, when exposed to higher
temperatures, they enhance their solar reflectance
becoming whiter (White Phase). Higher values of total
solar reflectance result in lower surface temperatures,
thus building cooling loads and urban overheating are
decreased too. An accelaretd test method has been set
up to evaluate aging of thermochromic coatings. The
results show a good compatibility of some selected
pigmentswith cementitiousmatrix and their poor stability
over time (few hours), due to phtodegradation under UV
and VIS radiations.
Biography
Andrea Cacciatore is a Senior Researcher in GPI (Global Prod-
uct Innovation)-Italcementi SpA, where he has been working
since 2007. He has completed his MSc in Materials Engineer-
ing from Università del Salento studying hydrothermal and
mechanochemical synthesis of titania-graphitic composites
materials. His R&D work focuses on smart materials for build-
ing applications, taking into account in particular photocata-
lytic, cool, and Graphitic Related Materials. Since 2007 he has
been involved in the concrete applications of dynamic and
static cool materials in the freamwork of the Italian founded
Project COOL IT.
a.cacciatore@italcementi.it