Instituto de Ciencias de la Construcción Eduardo Torroja (IETcc-CSIC)

Snapshot

Country	Spain
City	Madrid
Tier	Extended
Primary ecosystem	Applied Energy
Unit	Physico-Chemical Testing Unit
Unit	Building Systems and Habitability group
Publicly linked people	Gloria Pérez · Pablo Alonso
Databases hosted	Database of visible reflectance, solar reflectance and emissivity of urban materials (DIGITAL.CSIC, doi:10.20350/DIGITALCSIC/22640)
Networks	PaRaMetriC

Why it matters internationally

IETcc-CSIC has published an open dataset of visible reflectance, solar reflectance and thermal emittance for 236 commercial façade, roof and pavement materials, measured between 2023 and 2026 in the mateMad, PAULIA and ZEBAI projects. Its thermo-optical work, begun in the mateMad project, includes peer-reviewed studies of urban envelope materials in Madrid and of the reliability of portable in-situ reflectance and emissivity measurements. IETcc researchers co-authored the PaRaMetriC deliverable on reference techniques for emittance and reflectance of passive radiative cooling materials, which includes intercomparisons of portable instruments.

Scope of activity

Quantities: solar and visible reflectance / absorptance · directional (20°, 60°) and hemispherical total thermal emittance · CIELAB colour coordinates
Spectral range: Reflectance 380–1700 nm; thermal emittance from directional-hemispherical reflectance in six bands over 1.5–21 µm
Methodology: Laboratory and in-situ characterisation of opaque urban and construction materials with portable fibre-optic spectrometers (solar and visible reflectance per UNE-EN 410) and a portable emissometer; includes studies of the reliability of portable in-situ measurements.
Named facilities: Portable emissometer (directional-hemispherical reflectance, 1.5–21 µm) · Fibre-optic spectrometers with integrating sphere

Application domains: urban heat island mitigation and outdoor thermal comfort · building energy performance · façade, roof and pavement materials · passive radiative cooling (PaRaMetriC).

IR-EMPOWER contributions

IR-EMPOWER 2026: Pablo Alonso, “Emissivity Measurements of Construction Materials with Portable Equipment”
IR-EMPOWER 2026: Gloria Pérez, “Catalogue of Thermo-Optical Properties of Construction Materials”

External sources

Traceability

Every claim in this profile traces to the external sources listed above. Profile follows the research-map methodology. Added to the directory: 2026-09-25 (verified against the institution’s public pages or peer-reviewed publications).