Gres Aragón collaborates with Harvard on a new ceramic system for cooling indoor spaces

Spanish tile manufacturer Gres Aragón has worked with researchers at Harvard university on a system which uses ceramic tiles with a special coating designed to cool indoor spaces through water evaporation.

According to the organisations, this research could represent high energy savings in comparison with conventional air-conditioning units. Gres Aragón-Faveker was responsible for designing and manufacturing a series of special extruded ceramic tiles.

The ceramic tiles are differently formulated from conventional ceramic materials in order to meet the requirements of the system, the company says. They are designed so that the coating and air flow are distributed across the whole surface so as to maximise their energy efficiency.

According to the preliminary data, in certain climates and operating conditions, this technology uses up to 75% less energy than conventional air-conditioning units (based on vapour-compression refrigeration systems).

This data was generated in the laboratories of Harvard University’s Wyss Institute. The researchers fitted a device to HouseZero, on Harvard University campus, to validate the results in real-world conditions.

The system, known as cSNAP, works with evaporative cooling technology, developed thanks to the participation of a multidisciplinary team of scientists and designers from Wyss Institute, Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design (GSD) and Harvard Center for Green Buildings and Cities (HCGBC), in collaboration with Gres Aragón-Faveker.

According to the researchers, cSNAP is a “long-lasting, low-cost, low-energy evaporative cooling system that can work efficiently in hot, humid climates”. In the future, they say, this eco-friendly option could replace conventional air-conditioning units that work with vapour-compression refrigeration systems.

“Because this system is much more economical and it only needs water to work instead of liquid refrigerants, it can be used in developing countries where conventional refrigeration systems are ruled out due to their high cost,” the researchers suggest.
Gresaragon.com