Improvements to the performance of thermal insulation materials offer the potential to significantly reduce building energy use and operational greenhouse gas emissions. Reducing the embodied greenhouse gas emissions of thermal insulation products provides a further opportunity to reduce the life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions associated with the building sector, with sustainably-designed and manufactured thermal insulation products acting as carbon negative materials in potentially carbon negative buildings. A high-performance, carbon negative, building insulation will be developed and demonstrated in the proposed program. Use of the high-performance insulation in both retrofit and new residential building construction will provide both an immediate sequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide along with reduced operational greenhouse gas emissions due to reduced transfer of heat through the building envelope during its lifetime. Insulation samples will be fabricated, mock-ups of insulated enclosure sections will be assembled in order to evaluate insulation performance per relevant ASTM standards, large-scale low-cost manufacturing plans will be established, and product life cycle analysis will be completed in the proposed program.
