Building Services Engineering l November/December 2022
Kingspan Technical Insulation
Addressing embodied carbon To assist building services specifiers in cutting harmful emissions, Elementa carried out new research that reveals that the emissions from the Kingspan KoolDuct System can be almost five times lower than some lagged steel ductwork. It also showed that Kooltherm pipe insulation has a much lower embodied carbon impact than other phenolic and nitrile rubber solutions, and can match those from glass and mineral wool lagging. John O’Gorman, National Sales and Specification Manager, Kingspan Technical Insulation Ireland, explains. Elementa looked at the embodied carbon emissions from two Kingspan Technical Insulation products: • Kingspan Kooltherm Pipe Insulation – a phenolic pipe insulation with thermal conductivities as low as 0.025W/mK; • The Kingspan KoolDuct System – a pre-insulated ductwork system formed from phenolic insulation panels with a foil facing. They compared these against typical embodied carbon emissions from four
categories of pipe and ductwork insulation – nitrile rubber; glass fibre; mineral wool; and phenolic. To do this, Elementa gathered embodied carbon data from 84 pipe and duct insulation products through the use of Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) and manufacturer forms. Then, they used the methodology within CIBSE TM65 to calculate the Global Warming Potential (GWP) for each individual product. Using these results, they calculated a mean average GWP figure for the four pipe and duct insulation categories. As the Kingspan KoolDuct System is fabricated from pre-insulated panels and does not require sheet metal ductwork, Elementa considered not only the embodied impact from the four duct insulation types, but also from four different dimensions of steel ductwork ranging from 200 x 200mm to 1200 x 1200mm. Ductwork Results The embodied carbon emissions from the Kingspan KoolDuct System were more than three times lower than those associated with steel ductwork lagged with the generic glass fibre, mineral wool or phenolic insulation, and almost five times lower than those from nitrile
Figure 1 – Embodied emissions from the Kingspan KoolDuct System compared with other duct insulation types and 1200 x 1200mm steel ductwork.
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lagged steelwork. See Figure 1. This saving was mainly because the Kingspan KoolDuct System does not require steel ductwork. The research also showed that these savings increased when larger dimensions of steel ductwork were used. Pipe insulation results The review of pipe insulation showed that embodied emissions from Kingspan Kooltherm pipe insulation were similar to those of glass and mineral wool products and much lower than for nitrile rubber. This was because to the product’s excellent thermal efficiency, which allowed the desired thermal performance to be met with a slimmer thickness of insulation, saving on materials. See Figure 2. Despite being manufactured from phenolic insulation, the embodied impact from Kooltherm pipe insulation was around half of the generic phenolic category. This was largely due to the innovative continuous production processes used by Kingspan Technical Insulation which greatly reduce manufacturing waste. Kingspan Technical Insulation can provide detailed EPD certificates for both Kooltherm pipe insulation and the KoolDuct System to support all projects. Contact: Kingspan Technical Insulation. T: 042 975 4219 E: hvactechnical@ kingspaninsulation.co.uk www.kingspantechnicalinsulation.ie Q
Figure 2 – Embodied emissions from the Kingspan Kooltherm pipe insulation compared with other pipe insulation types.
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