Prof. Katsura Takao

Hokkaido University, Japan
Dr. Katsura received the Ph. D. degree in Engineering from Hokkaido University, Japan, in 2006. After he worked in the University of Kitakyushu, Japan, he has been an Associate Professor in Hokkaido University. His research field is the Environmental Energy Engineering, specifically applying thermal engineering for renewable energy heat utilization and the development of technologies related to net zero energy buildings and houses. Dr. Katsura published about 80 papers in national and international journals. He is an associate editor of International Journal of Solar Thermal Vacuum Engineering and a guest editor for special issue in Energies.

Talk title: Development of new structured-core transparent vacuum insulation panels contributing to insulation retrofit of existing buildings
Reducing the energy consumption of buildings, factories, and other facilities is essential to achieving decarbonization. In order to reduce the energy consumption in the residential houses and commercial buildings, Zero Energy Buildings (ZEB) and Houses (ZEH) have been defined in Japan. Then efforts are underway to make buildings ZEB or ZEH. However, energy-saving technologies have not been introduced in existing buildings, especially insulation performance is insufficient. In order to retrofit the insulation of existing buildings, new, low-cost transparent vacuum insulation panels (TVIPs) using structured cores for the windows of existing buildings are proposed. The TVIP is produced by inserting the structured core, the low emissivity film, and the adsorbent into the transparent gas barrier envelopes. The outlines, the design and thermal analysis method, the performance evaluation (test) method are introduced. In addition, the challenges to realizing TVIPs and the research that has been carried out to solve them will be presented.