Buildings
Designing buildings to conserve energy and resources
Air Conditioning without Electricity
Written by Peter, on January 30, 2019
SoundEnergy, a Dutch company, has demonstrated a thermal acoustic engine which takes heat from any source and produces a powerful cooling effect without requiring power from any other source – potentially providing air conditioning or refrigeration from industrial waste heat or solar energy. The device combines two technologies which have been understood for a long […] Read more »
Graphene Makes Concrete Stronger and Reduces CO2 Emissions
Written by Peter, on April 26, 2018
Researchers at the University of Exeter have developed a new technique that uses nanoengineering technology to incorporate graphene into traditional concrete making it more than twice as strong and four times more water resistant than existing concretes while significantly reducing carbon emissions. Read more »
Street Layout Has a Big Effect on Urban Heat
Written by Peter, on March 26, 2018
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found that the pattern of streets in a city can have a big effect on the strength of the local heat island effect which causes cities to be hotter than their surroundings. Read more »
New Cement Cuts CO2 Emissions
Written by Peter, on December 8, 2017
Solidia Technologies has developed a cement making process that the company says produces 70% less CO2 emissions as conventional cement manufacture while producing a product which is equally as strong. Read more »
Adding Irradiated Waste Plastic Strengthens Cement
Written by Peter, on November 21, 2017
Researchers at MIT have found that by exposing plastic flakes to small, harmless doses of gamma radiation, then pulverizing the flakes into a fine powder, they could produce concrete that is up to 15% stronger than conventional concrete. Read more »
Roof Panels That Make Air-Conditioning Much More Efficient
Written by Peter, on September 13, 2017
Researchers at Stanford University have developed a fluid-filled roof panel which can make air-conditioning significantly more efficient. Read more »
Solar Glass Bricks
Written by Peter, on September 13, 2017
Build Solar, a spin-off from the University of Exeter in the UK, has been set up to market an innovative solar glass block technology. Read more »
New Material Can Cool Buildings, Day and Night, with No Energy Consumption
Written by Peter, on February 10, 2017
Engineers at the University of Colorado Boulder has developed a metamaterial – an engineered material not found in nature – which has the ability to cool objects even under direct sunlight with zero energy and water consumption. Read more »
Turning Carbon Dioxide into a Replacement for Concrete
Written by Peter, on March 15, 2016
A team of researchers at UCLA are developing process which would use captured carbon dioxide to make a new building material to replace concrete. Read more »
New Roof Coating Keeps Roofs Much Cooler
Written by Peter, on June 10, 2015
Scientists at the University of Technology Sydney have developed a coating which keeps roofs significantly cooler than the ambient air temperature, even under the most intense summer conditions. Dr Angus Gentle and Emeritus Professor Geoff Smith reported that a roof with a “coated polymer stack” – a combination of specially chosen polyesters on a silver […] Read more »
