Predictable building enveloping based on enhanced glass foam insulation with heat reflective properties

Abstract Commercial glass foam was covered with 1–4 layers of coating containing titanium dioxide (TiO2) to study thermal efficiency and changes in the reflection and emissivity spectrum in correlation with the number of layers. The morpho-structural and optical properties of the coated foam glass were studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform-infrared (FT-IR), Raman and ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and laser microscopy. Structural characterization by X-ray diffraction revealed amorphous nature of the foam glass and the presence of rutile structure (natural tetragonal crystal structure) for TiO2. We find that the thermal reflective and heat-insulating properties are significantly improved by applying the TiO2 coating so that the functionalized foam glass presents reflectance with 84.6% higher in foam glass covered with the fourth layer compared with non-layered glass foam. It was demonstrated that the use of reflective coatings can reduce the foam glass surface temperature under hot summer conditions by 47.3% which led to the reduction of heat transfer from 55 W∙m−2 in the case of uncovered glass foam to about 28 W∙m−2 for glass foam coated with four layers of TiO2. The foam glass coated with TiO2 is an effective method to increase its thermal screen performance, reflecting a large part of the solar radiation which makes it efficient for thermal insulation of exterior parts of a building that may be exposed to solar and IR radiation, reducing heat gain in buildings.