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Old glass - a new material

September 03, 1999

Insulation materials used for sound insulation, as thermal cladding and in fire prevention play an important role in modern building. Ever since asbestos and a number of other building materials were identified as hazardous, demand has continually grown for non-fibrous building materials that do not present any risk to health. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics IBP in Stuttgart have developed the fiber-free material, REAPOR. It is waterproof, fireproof, and even resistant to acid attack. It is extremely stable and at the same time light in weight, it insulates against heat and cold, and absorbs sound. Furthermore, it is extremely environment-friendly. It is made of 90% recycled glass, and can itself be recycled in its entirety. To round off its merits - it is easy to machine, to saw or to drill.

REAPOR's basic material is the granular expanded glass Liaver, a spherical and lightweight building material made from recycled glass. It has already found uses in building, for example as an additive to mortar or plaster to reduce material density and thereby weight. In the production of REAPOR, the granular expanded glass is sintered. The tiny spheres of glass are heated and certain agents added. At the points where the Liaver spheres touch, extremely stable bonds or sintering necks are generated. This phenomenon is due to that fact that the glass only melts at the points of contact, and thus no additional binding agents are required. A further useful property of REAPOR is that the customer can specify the size and distribution of the pores - in accordance with the desired degree of thermal or acoustic insulation, and weight requirements.

A pilot plant is already in place at the IBP in Stuttgart. REAPOR panels are produced there for a mobile partition-wall system marketed by Preform Raumgliederungs-GmbH. This preliminary series is used in partitioning large office spaces, as well as in other applications. Next year, the joint-venture company Lias-Franken Leichtbaustoffe GmbH & Co. KG plans to begin series production in Ilmenau. Manufacture of REAPOR components for other uses in building can then begin, such as for sound insulation, as insulation against heat or cold, and in fire prevention.

For further information:
Dr.-Ing. Holger Gödeke
Phone: +49 7 11/9 70-33 76
Fax: +49 7 11/9 70-33 85
email: goedeke@ibp.fhg.de

Fraunhofer-Institut für
Bauphysik IBP
Nobelstrasse 12
D-70669 Stuttgart
Press contact:
Rita Schwab
Phone: +49 7 11/9 70-33 01
Fax: +49 7 11/9 70-33 95
email: schw@ibp.fhg.de
http://www.ibp.fhg.de

A picture - in colour or black-and-white - can be ordered from the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft.

Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft

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