Affordable, High-Tech Windows Deliver Comfort and Significant Energy Savings
Imagine windows that actively prevent heat transfer, keeping your home warm in winter and cool in summer. This wouldn’t just mean lower heating and cooling bills; it would drastically reduce your energy consumption and carbon emissions, all while ensuring year-round comfort.
AeroShield, an innovative startup originating from MIT, is on the verge of mass-producing such windows. Building operations contribute a substantial 36% of global carbon dioxide emissions, and inefficient windows are a major culprit in this energy waste. To tackle this, AeroShield has engineered a window technology that promises to slash heat loss by up to 65%, leading to substantial reductions in building energy use and carbon emissions. The company recently celebrated the inauguration of its new manufacturing facility dedicated to producing these revolutionary energy-efficient windows.
“Our core mission is to decarbonize the built environment,” states Elise Strobach, SM ’17, PhD ’20, co-founder and CEO of AeroShield. “The widespread availability of affordable, thermally insulating windows will be instrumental in achieving that objective, simultaneously lowering homeowners’ heating and cooling expenses.” The U.S. Department of Energy indicates that for most homeowners, 30% of their utility bill is directly attributable to window inefficiencies.
Pioneering Technology Developed at MIT
The foundational research for AeroShield’s window technology commenced a decade ago within the MIT laboratory of Evelyn Wang, Ford Professor of Engineering, who is currently on leave serving as director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). In late 2014, the MIT team secured initial funding from ARPA-E, with subsequent support from other sponsors, including the MIT Energy Initiative via the MIT Tata Center for Technology and Design in 2016.
The research primarily focused on aerogels—extraordinary materials known for being ultra-porous, lighter than marshmallows, strong enough to support a brick, and an unparalleled barrier against heat flow. While aerogels were invented in the 1930s and adopted by NASA and others for thermal insulation, a significant challenge remained: no one had successfully rendered them transparent.
An aerogel comprises transparent, loosely connected nanoscale silica particles and is 95% air. However, a typical aerogel sheet isn’t transparent because light becomes scattered by these silica particles as it passes through.
After five years of extensive theoretical and experimental work, the MIT team pinpointed the critical factor for achieving transparency: ensuring the silica particles are both minutely small and uniformly sized. This precise characteristic allows light to travel directly through the material, making the aerogel transparent. Crucially, as long as particle size remains small and consistent, increasing the thickness of an aerogel sheet to achieve greater thermal insulation won’t diminish its clarity.
Various teams within the MIT lab explored diverse applications for these super-insulating, transparent aerogels. Some concentrated on enhancing solar thermal collectors, aiming for more efficient and cost-effective systems. However, for Strobach, boosting the thermal efficiency of windows appeared particularly promising and potentially transformative as a strategy to mitigate climate change.
The researchers determined that aerogel sheets could be seamlessly integrated into the space between panes in double-pane windows, effectively more than doubling their insulating power. These enhanced windows could then be manufactured on existing production lines with only minor adjustments, resulting in an affordable product that would offer the same wide array of styles as conventional windows. Best of all, once purchased and installed, these windows would lead to reduced electricity bills, decreased energy consumption, and lower carbon emissions.
The potential impact on building energy use is substantial. “If we consider only winter, windows in the United States lose enough energy to power over 50 million homes,” remarks Strobach. “That wasted energy generates approximately 350 million tons of carbon dioxide—exceeding the emissions from 76 million cars.” Super-insulating windows could empower home and building owners to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by gigatons while saving billions in heating and cooling expenses.
The AeroShield Journey
In 2019, Strobach and her MIT collaborators—Aaron Baskerville-Bridges MBA ’20, SM ’20, and Kyle Wilke PhD ’19—co-founded AeroShield to further develop and commercialize their aerogel-based technology for windows and other applications. Over the subsequent five years, their dedicated efforts have garnered significant attention, recently culminating in two major achievements.
In spring 2024, the company announced the inauguration of its new pilot manufacturing facility in Waltham, Massachusetts. Here, the team will commence the production, testing, and certification of their initial full-sized windows and patio doors for the inaugural product launch. The 12,000-square-foot facility will significantly expand the company’s capabilities, featuring state-of-the-art aerogel R&D labs, manufacturing equipment, assembly lines, and testing apparatus. Strobach explains, “Our pilot facility will supply window and door manufacturers as we introduce our first products, and it will also serve as our R&D headquarters as we develop the next generation of energy-efficient products utilizing transparent aerogels.”
Also in spring 2024, AeroShield received a substantial $14.5 million award from ARPA-E’s “Seeding Critical Advances for Leading Energy technologies with Untapped Potential” (SCALEUP) program. This program provides fresh funding to prior ARPA-E awardees who have “demonstrated a viable path to market.” This funding will enable the company to scale its production capacity to tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of units per year.
Strobach also highlights two less apparent advantages of the SCALEUP award.
Firstly, the funding accelerates the company’s progress in the scale-up phase of their technology development. “From our fundamental studies and lab experiments, we know we can create large-area aerogel sheets suitable for an entry or patio door,” Elise notes. “The SCALEUP award allows us to pursue that vision directly. We don’t need to produce all the incremental aerogel sizes to prove we can make a large one. The award provides the capital for us to acquire the extensive equipment needed for large-scale aerogel production.”
Secondly, the SCALEUP award validates the company’s potential to other prospective investors and collaborators. Indeed, AeroShield recently announced an additional $5 million in funding from existing investors, including the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center and MassVentures, as well as new investor MassMutual Ventures. Strobach emphasizes that the company now boasts a strong network of investor, engineering, and customer partners.
She underscores the vital role of these partners in achieving AeroShield’s mission. “We understand that our fundamental breakthrough has the power to revolutionize the industry,” she asserts. “Now, our goal is to execute. With the right partners and at the appropriate pace, we believe we can genuinely boost the energy efficiency of our buildings soon enough to make a significant impact on climate change.”