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The End of the Air Conditioner!

31 Jul '07 from Aron Buterbaugh

The End of the Air Conditioner

During the recent renovation on my personal kitchen, I had an interesting discussion with my plumber about this revolutionary wallboard material which acts like a major air conditioner without power requirements. I thought what in the world was he talking about? In fact, he was planning on building his new “Maine camp” out of this material which would allow him to lower his heating bill in the winter and eliminate his cooling requirements, i.e. his AC, in the summer. Interested, so was I.

So I did a little digging... the product is called, Micronal® PCM SmartBoard(TM), made by BASF. It was designed around “modern houses and their lightweight construction and office complexes of steel and glass with transparent frontage”. Smartboard is an innovative gypsum drywall board made with encapsulated MicronalÒ PCM, a microencapsulated paraffin wax.

The basic premise is this: as your room heats up the paraffin wax changes from a solid to a liquid thereby absorbing heat. In short, the wax acts as a heat storer when it is warm and a heat supplier when it is cold. So, what about durability and practicality? Marco Schmidt of BASF’s Functional Polymers division states, “We enclose microscopically small dropletsof wax in a virtually indestructible acrylic polymer shell that withstands even drilling and sawing. The wax cannot leak out of this impenetrable capsule and the Micronal® PCM products satisfy all the building and environmental regulations.” "The thermal capacity of a one-half-inch thick plaster layer with 30 percent Micronal is roughly equivalent to that of a six-inch thick brick wall. Consequently, a building that utilizes a thin layer of a Micronal modified plaster can achieve the same cool interior feel as a building that uses a thick stone or masonry wall, states Michael Guibault, a Marketing Manager for BASF's Construction Polymers business in North America, Where is this material being used now? Have a look at Sonnenschiff, a 6,500 sq.meter mixed used building in Freiburg, Germany (www.sonnenschriff.de).

Where will it be used? I hope in my next house reno project!

For futher information, BASF recommends checking out

http://www.micronal.de

http://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/welcome_english.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_Change_Material

or Contact:
Hartmut Lang
BASF
Tel: (973) 426-2843
E-mail: langh@basf.com


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Micronal Smartboard by BASF

On October 26th, 2007 Aron Buterbaugh says:

Spoke with the US contact. It seems the costs to import the product from Germany are too high, thanks to the weak dollar export plan by the US gov't.

Therefore, we are to see the first production to go live in the US for the same product this winter. Perhaps we will see the product on the shelves by the hot summer???

Keep posted.

"Go Green"
-----------------
Aron Buterbaugh
Building Green TV Contributor

Meeting House Designs
Principal
192 Mussey Street
South Portland, Maine 04106