Blueshift International Materials, Inc. announced it was awarded a contract to partner with PARC, a Xerox company, to develop and scale a polymer aerogel that is both thermally insulating and highly transparent for use in commercial and residential windows.
This contract is a part of PARC’s $3 million award from the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) as part of the organization’s Single-Pane Highly Insulating Efficient Lucid Design (SHIELD) program. For this project, PARC is partnering with Blueshift and Pilkington North America to develop an innovative window coating that significantly improves the energy efficiency of existing single-pane windows in commercial and residential buildings.
PARC selected Blueshift based on its award-winning polyimide aerogels, expertise with other polymer aerogels, and proficiency in manufacturing roll-to-roll format polymer aerogels. As part of the partnership, Blueshift will develop a pilot roll-to-roll manufacturing process to demonstrate that fabrication of the aerogel can scale to sizes relevant to windowpanes. The new windowpane will be of similar weight and thickness as existing single panes. Extensive windowpane testing will be performed by Pilkington North America, leading manufacturer of architectural glazings.
“We are delighted to be rewarded this contract as part of the PARC team and the ARPA-E selection,” said Dr. Garrett Poe, Blueshift Executive Vice President and Program Manager. “The award allows us to leverage our investments in revolutionary polymer aerogel product and process development. We look forward to collaborating with PARC and Pilkington North America.”
A worldwide trend towards reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and increasing resource efficiency have raised the importance of lightweight and high performance insulating materials. Blueshift continues to create innovative materials to build increasingly energy efficient products.
About Blueshift
Blueshift provides best-in-class state of the art LIGHTWEIGHT polymer aerogel materials. Our initial product, AeroZero®, is the first commercially available Polyimide Aerogel in the world, available in a dust-free, lightweight, small footprint roll and monolith form.
