Experimental Study on the Thermal Conductivity of Three Natural Insulators for Industrial Fishing Applications

Abstract

Ecological materials have been implemented in different industrial sectors due to their good performance as thermal insulators and the fact that they are 100% natural, recyclable, and biodegradable, contributing to environmental sustainability. The main objective of this article is to compare the thermal conductivity coefficients of three natural insulators with that of expanded polystyrene (a non-biodegradable material). Expanded polystyrene is one of the materials which is most often used to maintain cold temperatures in containers built for this purpose in the fishing industry; it is used for this purpose because of its properties, including a light weight and a high thermal insulation capacity and resistance. Almost all insulators have the ecological disadvantage of being environmentally unfriendly materials because they are made up of oil particles, which are not recyclable and are harmful to ecosystems. The natural insulator materials were evaluated and subjected to a drying process to reduce the humidity coefficient; then, the containers were built with an adequate insulation thickness of 25 mm. Three filling tests were carried out (at 100, 70, and 50%) to evaluate the thermal conductivity, using the Mann–Whitney U statistical analysis process to determine insulator differences. The results show that the expanded polystyrene had the lowest thermal conductivity of 0.032 W/m K, followed by the rice husk, which had a value of 0.036 W/m K. Finally, a comparative study of conservation costs was carried out in the different containers built with the natural insulators; the lowest value found was for the expanded polystyrene (COP 159.57 around USD 0.040). This allowed to conclude that rice husk is the material that comes closest to the insulating characteristics of expanded polystyrene.