There is a kind of glass that becomes opaque when electricity is applied

Recently, Professor Yang Huai from the University of Science and Technology Beijing developed a new type of glass that has both air conditioning and curtain functions. This smart glass can adjust room temperature and brightness by temperature, electric field, and magnetic field. It will be launched this year. It will be officially launched in the second half of the year. Can glass really be used as air conditioners and curtains? Our reporter interviewed Professor Yang Huai, the developer of smart glass, and Mr. Yang Hongguang, the project leader of the company who signed a smart glass industrialization agreement with him.

"Glass air conditioner" automatically adjusts temperature

Mr. Yang said that the reason why this kind of glass can replace air conditioners is because it can automatically adjust its own temperature as the outdoor temperature changes. The transmittance of light and infrared rays can achieve the effect of regulating indoor temperature.

When the outdoor temperature rises higher than the indoor temperature, the infrared transmittance of the glass itself will automatically begin to decrease, thereby effectively preventing solar heat radiation from entering the room. When the outdoor temperature drops, the infrared transmittance of the glass will The infrared transmittance will increase, so that the temperature in the room will not change significantly. In short, this smart glass can keep the indoor temperature relatively stable. "If the room uses this kind of glass, you don't need to turn on the air conditioner in summer, and you can use less heating in winter."

"Glass curtains" protect privacy

Nowadays, many high-end Business buildings all use large pieces of floor-to-ceiling glass. In order to make the overall effect of the building more perfect, they rarely install curtains, so that every move in the building can be clearly seen by people outside, lacking the privacy of personal space. "This problem can be solved if we replace it with smart glass." Mr. Yang said that it can change the transparent state of the glass through the action of an electric field. One of them is that under normal conditions, the glass is transparent. Once you don't want others to see it, you only need to press the switch that can apply an electric field of about 9 volts, and the glass will no longer be transparent, and it will serve as a curtain. . This way you can have a completely private space. Polymer liquid crystal materials have created miracles

The secret of this smart glass is that it is filled with polymer liquid crystal materials during production, so that the light transmittance of the glass becomes adjustable. Mr. Yang introduced two production methods. One is to sandwich the liquid crystal material directly between two pieces of glass. The highest and lowest light transmittance of this processing method can reach more than 95% and less than 0.1% respectively; the other processing method The method is to first sandwich the liquid crystal material between two layers of transparent plastic films to form an interlayer film, and then sandwich the interlayer film between two pieces of glass. The maximum and minimum light transmittance of this processing method can reach 80% respectively. above and below 0.0001%. In other words, different processing techniques have different maximum and minimum limits for glass transparency, and users can choose according to different needs.

Smart glass is a master of energy conservation and environmental protection

Smart glass can not only be used in buildings, but also can be installed on cars. Using it can not only save natural resources, but also reduce the emission of carbon dioxide and other waste gases, saving natural resources and protecting the environment. If those glasses are replaced with smart glass that can control temperature and brightness, the workload of air conditioners in cars and buildings can be greatly reduced.

I also saw this kind of glass at a car show