Heat-in­su­lat­ing ma­te­ri­als for fa­cades are being used to an in­creas­ing ex­tent due to cur­rent en­er­gy and en­vi­ron­men­tal pol­i­cy. How­ev­er, be­cause of low ther­mal con­duc­tiv­i­ty of these fa­cade ma­te­ri­als fa­cade sur­face heats up quick­ly at high out­side tem­per­a­tures re­spec­tive­ly cools down quick­ly at low out­side tem­per­a­tures. This re­sults in in­creased ad­he­sion of many soils (e.g. due to gum­ming at high tem­per­a­tures) and in­creased mi­cro­bial growth (in­creased con­den­sa­tion due to rapid cool­ing below dew point). Re­moval of such ad­her­ent soils by using cur­rent­ly avail­able clean­ing meth­ods is con­nect­ed to high per­son­nel and op­er­at­ing costs.

There­fore, the wfk – Clean­ing Tech­nol­o­gy In­sti­tute has de­vel­oped a new clean­ing pro­ce­dure based on in­ter­pen­e­trat­ing poly­mer net­works (IPNs) as re­new­able soil-re­lease coat­ings. The de­vel­oped IPNs can be ap­plied onto fa­cades as dis­per­sions in un­crosslinked state e.g. by spray­ing. Sub­se­quent to ap­pli­ca­tion, crosslink­ing is in­duced by sun­light and adding a saline so­lu­tion. An in­vis­i­ble coat­ing with high me­chan­i­cal, ther­mal and weath­er sta­bil­i­ty is achieved, which pro­tects heat-in­su­lat­ing fa­cades against var­i­ous types of soil. Under clean­ing con­di­tions crosslink­ing den­si­ty of IPNs is re­duced by ap­pli­ca­tion of the clean­ing so­lu­tion. Con­se­quent­ly, IPNs can eas­i­ly be peeled off to­geth­er with ad­her­ing soil e.g. by means of low-pres­sure water jets or me­chan­i­cal treat­ment.

The new clean­ing pro­ce­dure based on IPNs pro­vides clean­ing com­pa­nies with an ef­fec­tive and eco­nom­i­cal method for re­moval of strong­ly ad­her­ent soil from heat in­su­lat­ing fa­cade ma­te­ri­als.

The IGF-pro­ject 16887 N of the re­search as­so­ci­a­tion Europäische Forschungs­ge­mein­schaft Reini­gungs- und Hy­gien­etech­nolo­gie e.V., Cam­pus Ficht­en­hain 11, D-47807 Krefeld, was sup­port­ed via the AiF with­in the fund­ing pro­gramme „In­dus­trielle Gemein­schafts­forschung und –en­twick­lung (IGF)“ by the Fed­er­al Min­istry of Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs and En­er­gy (BMWi) due to a de­ci­sion of the Ger­man Par­lia­ment.

The re­search re­port is avail­able on re­quest from FRT.