Loading ...New housing innovations could be coming your way courtesy of KaZaK Composites. The company, which pursues development of integrated composite design and processing technologies, hopes to parlay a $150,000 Department of Energy grant into a highly automated process for producing mass-market structural plastic building panels with high-performance insulating properties.
The company has been developing methods to expand phase change material (PCM) technology. Brian J. Smith, director of engineering, says the company has a patented core material which has insulated properties. “Mixed in with that core is a secondary material so that when it gets hot, it melts. It consumes energy and when it cools off, it becomes solid again,” he says.
As part of this development, the company focused on pultruding the panels and core material that will go in the sheets. “We make them all simultaneously,” says Smith. “Instead of pre-placing the core, we create it as the panel’s being pultruded so that it becomes integral with the skins.”
KaZaK will primarily use PCM for housing panels. “If the sun strikes the panel and it begins to heat up, energy from the sun goes into melting the material so it takes a lot longer for heat from sun to be transmitted into the panel,” says Smith. “This allows the panel to act as a greater insulator for the home. Once the sun goes down, the material re-solidifies and the process will soon begin anew.”
KaZaK has not shopped the technology around to any company yet, but Smith says that is eventually where they’d like to be. “Ultimately, if a product is successful, it comes to the point of commercialization. The phase one program is generally a six-month-long duration to refine the technology and processes. Then in phase two, you begin to mass produce the products. After phase two, which is typically a two-year period, the government no longer contributes funding and you look for a commercial partner.”
The biggest challenges the company will face in the next phase concern size. The panels are 10-feet long and Smith says PCM has not been developed in larger-size models due to challenges with keeping the mixture evenly distributed. “Delivering the right amount of material to the manufacturing dye is not straightforward. You want the right amount of each ingredient. You have to develop the relationship between the products being used, and tailor the response of the material to the application,” he adds.
Though housing is the primary target, the company says the technology can be used for a variety of applications using FRP composite panels, including box structures, shipping containers, and tractor trailers.
