A PERCEPTION STUDY OF AEROGEL IN IMPROVING THE COOLING PERFORMANCE OF BUILDINGS IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

Aerogel is a high performance thermal insulator that has been shown to have several benefits which includes environmental sustainability, energy use reduction, space savings and dampening acoustic properties. However, this material is currently not adopted on a large scale in the built environment of Singapore. This paper aims to understand the factors which result in its low adoption rate and the feasibility of large scale aerogel implementation, as well as offer recommendations to increase its adoption locally. It was hypothesised that the main reasons for the low adoption of aerogel was due to poor cost effectiveness of the material. This study conducted interviews with 2 developers, Jurong Town Corporation and the Housing Development Board, together with an insulation supplier to understand their perspectives on high performance insulation adoption. The key findings from the interview revealed that elements influencing the hypothesis were broadly defined as lack of thermal performance emphasis and regulations, safety concerns and high cost issues. This paper concludes that it is presently not feasible to adopt aerogel insulation on a large scale in the build environment in Singapore due to prohibitive cost, lack of government regulations and the uncertainty of its performance.