By Laurie Cowin | Construction Drive
Drive Brief
Swiss scientists with research group Empa have created a new insulating brick that would enable walls to conduct heat up to eight times better compared to a wall construction from standard clay and shale bricks, according to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
The bricks are filled with areogel, a lightweight, manufactured material made from gel in which gas replaces the gel’s otherwise liquid component. A traditional brick wall would need to be more than 6 feet deep to achieve the same insulative properties as an 8-inch-deep aerobrick wall. A perlite brick wall would have to be 35% thicker than an aerobrick wall.
