ThermaRock Brings Advanced Insulation to Wallboard

ThermaRock, a new wallboard from Serious Materials, offers superior insulating value with no added thickness. The product incorporates Aspen Aerogels’ Spaceloft blanket insulation bonded to gypsum or magnesium oxide to provide an insulating value of up to R-4.1. The product carries a steep price but offers up to eight times the R-0.5 insulation value of standard wallboard, bringing potential efficiency benefits for retrofits and other hard-to-insulate projects.

Aerogel is made by removing liquid from a gel through a process that prevents the gel’s structure from collapsing. As a result, aerogels have the lowest density of any solid known, consisting of at least 90% air. Their nanoporous structure and low conductivity make them exceptional insulators, rated at R-11 per inch, but at a cost that until recently limited them to highly specialized applications like spacecraft. Aerogels are used as a translucent insulation in Kalwall glazing panels (see