A highly insulating, translucent aerogel glass brick for building envelopes (2022)

A new aerogel glass brick has been developed for use in building envelopes, providing a structural, modular, and translucent façade component. This brick utilizes natural daylight and offers a high compressive strength of 45 MPa and a low thermal conductivity of approximately 53 mW/(m·K). These properties make it the insulating brick with the highest insulation performance reported in literature or available on the market. The glass brick is suitable for applications that combine daylighting, glare protection, and privacy protection, such as offices, libraries, and museums. It provides architects with new design opportunities to increase daylight inside buildings.