Thermally conductive cementitious compositions for use in flooring installations that are applied over a heat radiating flooring system to increase the thermal conductance of the flooring system and increase the rate of heating the flooring system. The thermally conductive cementitious compositions include a cementitious composition, amorphous flake graphite carbon, and an aqueous solution suitable for use as a thermally conductive mortar, grout or adhesive for flooring installations. The thermally conductive cementitious compositions also include a cementitious composition, mesh fine aluminum oxide, mesh coarse aluminum oxide, and an aqueous solution that provides a thermally conductive mortar, grout or adhesive for use in flooring installations.

A method of making a structural lightweight and thermal insulating concrete is described. The concrete has a coarse aggregate partly replaced by recycled plastic pieces. This enables the concrete to maintain a high compressive strength, low thermal conductivity, and low weight, while providing a use for waste plastic. The waste plastic pieces may comprise polyethylene in the form of flakes, fibers, or granules. Due to its low unit weight, adequate compressive strength and high thermal resistance the developed concrete can be used as a structural lightweight and thermal insulating concrete. The use of this concrete leads to economic and environmental benefits.

A low strength backfill material having a 28 days compressive strength less than approximately 2.0 MPa is provided. The backfill is suitable for use in areas with dense underground utilities due to its high excavatability and good thermal conductivity. The backfill includes a cementitious binder of approximately 1 weight percent to approximately 10 weight percent and fine aggregates in an amount of approximately 40 to approximately 75 weight percent. Filler is provided at 20 microns to approximately 100 microns for high flowability. A density-controlling agent of 0.0001-5 weight percent is used such that the density of a cured backfill material is approximately 1600 kg/m.sup.3 to 2000 kg/m.sup.3. Thermally conductive particles having a size range of approximately 0.01 microns to 500 microns in an amount of approximately 0.1 to 10 weight percent are evenly dispersed throughout the backfill.

A heat shield component includes a substrate, and a ceramic porous layer arranged on the substrate, the ceramic porous layer including a base body including ceramic, and pores included in the base body. Inner walls of the pores are covered with thermoplastic resin, and a porosity of the ceramic porous layer is in a range of 40% to 70%. The heat shield component can achieve high heat-insulating properties.

Hydrophobic shaped silica bodies having low density and low thermal conductivity are produced by forming a dispersion of silica in a solution of binder and organic solvent, and removing the solvent and shaping to form a shaped body. The shaped bodies retain their hydrophobicity, are stable with regards to shape, and are useful in acoustic and thermal insulation.

What are described are a process for producing an insulating product for the construction materials industry or an insulating material as intermediate for production of such a product, and a corresponding insulating material/insulating product. Also described are the use of a matrix encapsulation method for production of composite particles in the production of an insulating product for the construction materials industry or of an insulating material as intermediate for production of such a product, and the corresponding use of the composite particles producible by means of a matrix encapsulation method

Concrete materials and thermal energy storage devices employing such concrete materials are disclosed herein. The concrete material may include fibers in an amount ranging from about 1 to about 2 vol. %; an aggregate in an amount ranging from about 50 to about 80 vol. %, wherein the aggregates comprises siliceous aggregate and optionally carbonate aggregate; and a cementitious material in an amount from about 12 to about 20 vol. %, wherein the cementitious material comprises a combination of about 70 to about 85 vol. % of Portland cement and about 15 to about vol. % of silica fume, wherein all volume percentages unless otherwise indicated are based on the total volume of the concrete material.

The invention relates to a method for producing thermal energy storage components comprising phase change material embedded into porous components, in particular for use in cement-based compositions. The method comprises: an impregnation step (10) comprising introducing phase change material into porous components inside a main vessel (102) by vacuum impregnation; an injection step (12) at a temperature within a melting temperature range of said phase change material and under an overpressure, in order vacuuming to force the phase change material into the porous components; and an entrapment step (14) comprising reducing the temperature inside the main vessel, while maintaining an the overpressure, in order to lower the viscosity of said phase change material.

The current invention is a novel addition to the field and comprises a self-sensing high performance fiber reinforced Geopolymer composite (HPFR-GPC) with self-sensing ability. In one or more embodiment, the self-sensing abilities are created by the addition of high performance fibers into a Geopolymer composites. The HPFR-GPC exhibits smart, high performance, energy efficient, and sustainability characteristics including: enhanced tensile ductility, toughness, and strain hardening (including crack width control); improved piezoresistive effects; utilization of industrial by-product; high resistance to acid attacks; and lightweight, low density. When compared to current available embedded or attachable sensors, the current invention offers lower cost, higher durability, and a larger sensing volume.

A composition including a binder and a variable thermal conductivity material satisfying a conditional expression 1, wherein a content of the variable thermal conductivity material is from 300 parts by weight to 10,000 parts by weight with respect to a content of 100 parts by weight of the binder:

.sub.max/.sub.251.2[conditional expression 1] (wherein, .sub.25 represents a thermal conductivity at 25 C., and .sub.max represents the maximum value of a thermal conductivity at 200 C. or 500 C.)