Auto-cooling wall to decrease internal temperature

The house, seen as “alive”, interacting with the environment and with the people who make use of its benefits. This is the challenge of a group of three researchers in Barcelona, the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, coordinated by Areti Markopoulou, project director.

A project that sees the realization of a self cooling wall, capable of reducing the internal temperature even 5 or 6 ° C. To realize this project (which is part of sustainable architecture and green building field) they took inspiration from a natural process that concerns the man: sweating. In fact, in a similar way, this wall hit by high temperature begins to evaporate decreasing the internal temperature; this is possible due the hydrogel that is capable of absorbing water and hold it up to 500 times their weight.

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Around the hydrogel, there are other components that complete the prototype of  Hydroceramic developed by the researchers. There is a first layer of clay which is provided with holes in a conical shape, to guarantee the access of water and air of the hydrogel; a second layer of fabric, which once impregnated, transmits the liquid to the hydrogel.

Finally there is always a final layer of clay with a width less than the first. Surely this project has also points to the disadvantage; In fact, if on one hand the temperature decreases due to evaporation, the internal humidity greatly increases. Another limitation is the continuous supply and the intense water interlayer where there is the hydrogel; it was decided to overcome this problem with the use of rainwater, previously collected and stored for use.

Despite these small design limits, it is seen that there are many advantages; the reduction of internal temperature, follows an obvious savings in energy costs. Furthermore it is evident that it is a prototype made with cheap materials, easily available, and basing the principle of operation of a simple process and natural, we can say that certainly the cost of this prototype is definitely content.

Header image credits: intelligentconstructions.com

Edited by Luca Quarato, Civil Engineering student at University of Modena