R&D | Smart film that generates electricity and controls brightness of light
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Date21-07-16 11:49 Hit732Link
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The smart film that generates electricity and controls brightness of light |
A research team led by Dr. Soyeon Kim and Dong Chan Lim in the Korea Institute of Materials Science developed Korea’s first
organic material-based smart window film. The researchers improved the efficiency and transparency of the organic solar cell and
verified its excellent performance after making it a large-area flexible module as well as conflating with an electrochromic film. The
team is in the Department of Energy and Electronic Materials of KIMS.
Smart windows can reduce the energy consumption of buildings by changing the color according to the situation which can
adjust the brightness. The existing smart windows, manufactured based on inorganic materials, require high-temperature processing
and has flexibility-related problems. The problems were solved by manufacturing high-performance solar cells and organic materials-
based electrochromic devices.
The high-efficiency organic solar cell was produced by introducing organic molecules between the electron transport layer and the
photoactive layer. The technology allowed to increase the characteristics in terms of interfacial bonding between the two layers,
resulting in improved flexibility and good performance of large area devices. In particular, the research team succeeded in
producing an organic electrochromic-solar cell module that can generate electricity and control the brightness of a light by itself with
electricity generated by the solar cell.
The market size of the smart windows is expected to reach about 82.3 billion dollars (about 94 trillion won) by 2023, and has a
bright outlook due to the government's carbon neutrality and Green New Deal policies. The smart windows developed with the
technology of KIMS can be applied not only to existing buildings but also to curved surfaces, such as automobiles and aircraft, which
can seek market expansion in the future.