RPI Researchers Awarded $1.5M To Produce Hemp-Based Insulated Siding
March 14, 2024
Sustainably improving energy efficiency subject of multi-year federal DOE grant
TROY, N.Y. — Researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) will use hemp to develop a commercially viable, durable, and low-embodied-carbon insulated siding product to address what the U.S. Green Building Council says is a “crucial need for building retrofits to improve energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions.”
The three-year, $1.5 million award given as part of the Buildings Energy Efficiency Frontiers and Innovation Technologies (BENEFIT) funding opportunity from the United States Department of Energy (DOE) will support RPI faculty and industry partners in creating Hemp Retrofit Structural Insulated Panel (HeRS), a hemp-based insulated siding system that is designed to lower heating and cooling costs for homeowners, is easy for professionals to install, and will reduce the carbon footprint of the built environment.
“Hemp can revolutionize manufacturing in the United States,” said Alexandros Tsamis, the associate director of the Center for Architecture, Science and Ecology (CASE) at RPI and the lead primary investigator (PI) on this project. “By utilizing this versatile and renewable crop in building materials, we can create a building retrofit product that will not only be beneficial for homeowners and the environment but also has the potential to jumpstart regional circular economies throughout the United States based on renewable materials.”
Residential buildings account for 60% of the total built surface area, with over two-thirds of them being single-family homes. To address the need to find a sustainable, cost-efficient, and durable siding solution to insulate existing buildings, the researchers will develop a hemp-based structural insulated panel (SIP) for retrofit applications. HeRS will use a dense mat of hemp wool fibers bonded with a recycled binder that has a similar form factor and attachment method to existing siding materials to promote adoption by builders. It will have a minimum R-5 thermal performance to reduce heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) energy use by 15%-25%.
“By funding our proposal, the DOE recognizes the unsustainability of manufacturing and disposing of building materials,” said Daniel Walczyk, a professor of mechanical engineering and a co-PI on HeRS. “Our team offers a lower-cost, more environmentally friendly alternative to current cladding options, such as vinyl, that will eventually decompose in years instead of thousands of years with synthetics.”
Part of the Seed to City hemp initiative at RPI, the hemp siding stems from previous research from Tsamis and Walczyk on the use of natural fibers as a resource for sustainable construction, such as hemp in rebar.
In addition to the manufacturing and design of HeRS, goals of this product include a demonstration of a significantly reduced embodied carbon footprint when compared to other similar synthetic material products, including how the product can be nearly 100% recyclable at the end of life, and to conduct a viability study for supply chains that will demonstrate how quantities of hemp fiber produced in the United States can be effectively integrated into the production line of HeRS.
“Sustainability is critical from both economic and environmental perspectives,” said Hakan Hekimoglu, an assistant professor of supply chain management and co-PI. “As a result, supply chain planning and execution play an important role in sustainably delivering the desired outcomes.”
“Hemp is an exceptional natural resource that can be leveraged to create materials that are simultaneously sustainable and possess an unprecedented combination of valuable properties,” said Ed Palermo, an associate professor of materials science and engineering and co-PI. “In this project, I'm most excited to see how well panels made from hemp-based fibers can improve energy efficiency in buildings. If successful, this project could represent a huge win for both the economy and the environment.”
“I find one of the project's most exciting aspects to be its focus on tackling a global issue through employing local-level solutions and addressing climate change by capturing and storing atmospheric carbon in long-life building products all while fostering innovation at the domestic level through collaborations with local suppliers and manufacturers,” said Arta Yazdanseta, an assistant professor of architectural technology and co-PI.
HeRS will also leverage the expertise of several industry leaders to innovate and drive the cost-effective deployment of this clean energy technology.
"DuraSip is excited to apply our knowledge and experience with structural insulated panels to the HeRS project,” said Jeff Owen, managing member of DuraSip, a composites manufacturer of fiber reinforced skins and structural insulated panels (sips). This is a great opportunity to improve the energy efficiency of millions of existing homes while providing additional climate benefits through the use of renewable hemp fibers."
“Hemp is rapidly renewable, carbon-sequestering, and has the potential to regenerate farmland,” said Matthew Mead, founder and CEO of Hempitecture, a manufacturer of hemp-based insulation materials for buildings. “We are honored to be a part of researching ways to utilize hemp fiber building materials for retrofits, because it presents the opportunity to lower the embodied carbon of a building, while improving its operational performance, ultimately lowering the energy bills for the occupants.”
“We, at Introba, are constantly looking for building technologies, materials, and mechanisms to reduce the whole life carbon impact of our projects,” said Rushil Desai, a senior building performance analyst at Introba, a large building engineering and consulting firm. “Our goal is to understand and identify solutions that can be applied in the industry at scale.
The BENEFIT funding opportunity from the DOE supports the government-wide approach to the climate crisis by helping buildings to electrify while improving their energy efficiency and demand flexibility in a cost-effective and equitable manner. The winning projects were chosen through a competitive selection process that rigorously evaluated applications on their technical merit.
The award is issued through the DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, which has a mission to accelerate the research, development, demonstration, and deployment of technologies and solutions to equitably transition America to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions economy-wide by no later than 2050, and ensure the clean energy economy benefits all Americans, creating good paying jobs for the American people—especially workers and communities impacted by the energy transition and those historically underserved by the energy system and overburdened by pollution.
Media Contact:
Jeanne Gallagher, Communications Director
Gallaj3@rpi.edu 323-314-4057
About CASE: The Center for Architecture, Science, and Ecology at Rensselaer drives innovation in the built environment through a unique collaboration of faculty, research teams, students, and professional firms. CASE takes an integrated science, engineering and tech-startup inspired approach to advancing building capabilities across architecture, construction, technology, and product supply chains, with the goal of creating the sustainable, resilient, and healthy environments of the future. Partnering with New York City and state leadership at the forefront of domestic climate action policy, CASE is well positioned to establish RPI as a leader in built environment research, education, and industry advancement.
DOE Acknowledgement and Disclaimer: This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) under the Building Technologies Office (BTO) Award Number DE-EE0010920. The view expressed herein do not necessarily represent the view of the U.S. Department of Energy or the United States Government.