News

A material with good specifications to withstand the effects of moisture provides greater durability and less energy consumption when satisfying conditions of comfort and quality of the interior air.

Problems in buildings due to dampness are accentuated in very moist climates. The use of active systems for the control of relative humidity in enclosures can turn out to be costly in these locations. This is why it is necessary to develop strategies and passive systems that enable the achievement of suitable interior climatic conditions with criteria of sustainability. Thus the growing scientific interest in knowing about the hygroscopic behaviour of the building materials employed in edifices.

This is precisely the field in which Iñaki Gómez Arriaran, lecturer at the UPV/EHU and member of the ENEDI (Energetics in Buildings) research team at this University is working. Since November of last year he has been at the Porous Media and Thermophysical Properties Laboratory at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), in Florianapolis, Brazil where, together with lecturer Saulo Guths, he is carrying out research on ceramic construction materials that enable the effects of variations in relative humidity to be buffered without the need for active systems of air conditioning to control the same.