According to TechXplore, researchers from Drexel University may have come up with an innovative new way to make heating and cooling buildings more energy efficient by taking inspiration from the ears of elephants.
Roughly 50% of a building's energy usage is due to keeping a comfortable temperature in the building. This energy use makes up almost 40% of all total energy use and significantly contributes to the creation of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere.
While there are ways to help lower a building's energy usage already, such as more advanced insulation, strengthening windows, walls, and ceilings to better absorb and retain or lose heat is still a challenge.
However, Drexel University researchers recently published research in the Journal of Building Engineering about the concept they created, inspired by elephant ears and our own circulatory system. The concept sees a vascular-type network embedded within building materials that are cement-based. When the network is filled with a paraffin-based material, it helps ceilings, walls, and floors maintain their surface temperature.
Researchers also drew inspiration from Farnam's Advanced Infrastructure Materials Lab. Farnam's research focus is on creating more durable infrastructure materials with nature-inspired methods. As such, they've developed self-healing concrete and concrete that utilizes phase-change material to melt ice and snow.
The Drexel University researchers looked at several of Farnam's developments and ended up utilizing a printed polymer matrix to recreate a vascular system in concrete via a grid of channels. They then chose to fill those channels with a phase-change material.
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The paraffin-based material used in the vascular network absorbs and releases thermal energy as it shifts between solid and liquid states. When temperatures get colder, the material goes from liquid to solid and releases heat. Alternatively, when temperatures warm up, the paraffin-based material absorbs heat, making the surface of the concrete cooler.
For their experiment, the research team developed several cement samples with varying vascular networks to determine which one worked best. The sample featuring a diamond-shaped grid proved to be the most effective.
Robin Deb, Ph.D., co-author of the research, told TechXplore, "We found, perhaps not surprisingly, that more vasculature surface area equates to better thermal performance. This observation is similar to physiology of elephant and jackrabbit ears, which contain extensive areas of vasculature to help regulate their body temperature."
If this concept proves viable in the long term, it could help bring down energy bills for those living in buildings made with this material, while also reducing the amount of pollution buildings create, which will help cool the planet off.
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All day 🥵 Future research is still needed, though, to see how this concept will do. The research team plans to test other phase-change materials and larger cement samples over longer periods and varying environmental temperatures to see how things work long-term.
However, as Amir Farnam, Ph.D., a leader of the research, told TechXplore, "While this study was intended to show a proof of concept, these results are promising and something we can build on."
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