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Comparative Assessment
This report is prepared for ES Sales and Marketing Pty Ltd
Report Evaluation of the comparative performance of KN composite foam
This report is prepared by Dr. Thomas Loh and Ms. Harshani Egodagamage and reviewed
by Dr. Kate Nguyen. This report is submitted to ES Sales and Marketing Pty Ltd as part of the
project “New fire protection materials from industrial waste” in the ARC Industrial
Transformation Research Hub for Transformation of Reclaimed Waste Resources to
Engineered Materials and Solutions for a Circular Economy (TREMS).
08-December-2023
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Executive Summary
The aim of this research is to assess the relative thermal, mechanical and embodied carbon
performance of the KN composite foam system in development with ES Sales and Marketing Pty
Ltd. A review of the thermal conductivity, compression strength, embodied carbon, and cost of
existing thermal insulation products will be carried out by the Royal Melbourne Institute of
Technology University research team to provide indicative performance of KN composite foam. A
comparative assessment was performed for two nominal densities (109 and 153 kg/m3
). It was
revealed that KN composite foam is generally competitive in all categories.
Prepared by:
Dr. Thomas Loh
Email: thomas.loh@rmit.edu.au
Phone: +61 405 430 786
Signature:
Reviewed by:
A/Prof. Kate Nguyen
Email: kate.nguyen@rmit.edu.au
Phone: +61 405 430 786
Signature:
RMIT Classification: Trusted
Introduction
KN composite foam is a newly developed non-combustible thermal insulation material, and it is of
interest to compare its thermal and mechanical properties with the existing non-combustible
insulation materials. Rock wool and glass wool are the most used non-combustible insulation
materials in the construction industry. Meanwhile a new aerated mortar insulation has been
recently introduced to market which is non-combustible. Thus, it was aimed to identify the
properties of the above insulation materials for the comparison of those with the KN composite
foam. The data collected were the density, thermal conductivity, compression strength, embodied
carbon and cost.
Methodology
To assess the relative performance of KN composite foam a comparative assessment was
conducted. The necessary data relating to the thermal performance, mechanical properties and
embodied carbon of commercially available non-combustible insulation products was gathered by
reviewing scientific literature and publicly available product specification sheets. The comparative
assessment considered non-combustible thermal insulation materials as this is the market that KN
composite foam is targeted towards. The materials included in this assessment were therefore glass
wool, rock wool, and aerated mortar. The review excludes multifunctional insulations such as
thermal-acoustic and thermal-fire.
Results
The variation of thermal conductivity with density for the various thermal insulations are illustrated in
the Figure 1. Considering the density range between 70 – 160 kg/m3
, the thermal conductivity of KN
composite foam is lower than glass wool and aerated mortar. However, it lies within the scatter band
of rock wool and Envirofoam. It is noted that all the insulations demonstrated often quite similar
thermal conductivities when the density was around 70 kg/m3
.
Figure 1: Variation of the thermal conductivity with the density for the various thermal insulation materials
The compression strength is an important factor that needs to be considered when evaluating
thermal insulation materials. Figure 2 shows the compression strength results for different densities.
Considering the density around 100 kg/m3
, KN composite foam shows the lower compression strength compared to aerated mortar but higher compression strength than rock wool and
Envirofoam. For higher densities, KN composite foam yields significant improvements to
compression strength. For example, at a nominal density of 153 kg/m3
the compression strength is
double (x1.9) its’ strength at 109 kg/m3
(nominal density).
Figure 2: Variation of the compression strength with the density for the various thermal insulation materials.
Considering the density, thermal conductivity, compression strength, embodied carbon and cost, KN
composite foam was positioned among the other insulation materials in an overall performance star
chart, Figures 3. At the time of this report the data for the cost of aerated mortar was not available
as such it has not been included in the analysis. The embodied carbon of the insulations was
calculated by multiplying the quantity of each material by its carbon factor determined from literature.
Figure 3a compares the insulations for a density of 100 kg/m3 while Figure 3b compares the
insulations for a density of 150 kg/m3
. For a nominal density of 109 kg/m3
, KN composite foam
performs excellent in terms of thermal conductivity where together with rock wool they show the
lowest thermal conductivity. For both densities considered, KN composite foam has similar embodied
carbon to aerated mortar (0.4-0.5 kg CO2-e/kg) and the lowest cost ($2.89-3.81 per m2
) compared
with the other thermal insulators^
. However, KN composite foam shows the second highest
compression strength which is 31 kPa for a nominal density of 109 kg/m3
. When the nominal density
was increased to 153 kg/m3
, the compression strength of the KN composite foam increased
significantly to 60 kPa, being second to aerated mortar and Envirofoam which show similar
compression strengths. Increasing the density increased the thermal conductivity for all insulation
materials. Specifically for KN composite foam the thermal conductivity increased from 40 to 47
mW/m.K when the nominal density increased from 109 to 153 kg/m3
; remaining lower than glass
wool and aerated mortar.
Figure 3: Comparison of KN composite foam to the other insulation materials for nominal densities of a) 100 kg/m3 and
b) 150 kg/m3
The thermal efficiency of building floor, wall and ceiling insulation are benchmarked by their thermal
resistivity or R-value (equivalent to the inverse of the European U-value). Presented in Figure 4a-c
are the R-values for various commercially available non-combustible thermal insulations for a range
of thicknesses. It can be seen that KN composite foam is placed comparable to the glass wool
products produced by Pink batts, Earthwool and Bradford, Figure 4a. KN composite also appears
comparable to Rock wool, Figure 4b. However, more information on the thermal resistivity of
Rockwool needs to be gathered to provide a more thorough comparison. The thermal resistivity data
for KN composite foam, Envirofoam and aerated mortar is shown in Figure 4c for comparable
densities. Densities of 100 and 150 kg/m3 are respectively identifiable by the open and filled circles.
The thermal resistivity of KN composite foam is higher than aerated mortar by 6% for a density of
100 kg/m3 and by 9% for a density of 150 kg/m3
regardless of the thickness up to 300 mm. Compared to Envirofoam, the thermal resistivity is similar for a density of 150 kg/m3
, but 8% lower for a density
of 100 kg/m3
Figure 4: Comparison of the thermal resistivity of KN composite foam to commercially available non-combustible thermal
insulation materials. a) Glass wool, b) mineral wool, and c) aerated mortar
Discussion
Figure 1 suggests that the lower density KN composite foam are more effective in thermal insulation
compared to glass wool and aerated mortar, but similar to Envirofoam. At a nominal density of 100
kg/m3
the compression strength (Figure 2) is second only to aerated mortar which showed the
highest compression strength of the non-combustible thermal insulations considered in this
comparison. When considering embodied carbon and cost per square metre (Figure 3), KN
composite foam performs well with the second lowest embodied carbon (second only to Envirofoam),
and best in terms of cost (lowest out of all thermal insulations^
). KN composite foam achieved a high
compression strength (60 kPa) when the nominal density reached 153 kg/m3
, becoming the third
highest. Comparison of the thermal resistivity (R-value) of the various thermal insulations revealed
KN composite to have comparable thermal insulation performance to Envirofoam and mineral wool,
and superior performance to aerated mortar.
References
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Test results conducted by:
