BENGALURU: Glass buildings may be the in-thing these days, but they’re something of an energy-guzzler as they require more air conditioning to keep cool.
Working around this problem, researchers at the Centre for Nano and Soft Matter Sciences (CeNS) have developed a ‘Smart Window’ which can switch from being transparent and opaque and control sunlight entering the building, therefore temperature too.
This uses the simple electrostatic principle — where liquid crystals are sandwiched between two electrodes. When electricity passes through the liequid crystals, which are scattered under normal conditions, they get aligned to the electric field, making the window panes transparent.
Magic windows of this kind already exist, but affordability is a challenge that CeNS researchers have been able to overcome.
The team of scientists under Prof G U Kulkarni, president of Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research and Dr Ashutosh K Singh, scientist at CENS, have developed microwear-based transparent conducting electrodes (metal impregnated glass), which can conduct electricity.
To create this electrode, the glass is spray-coated with a crackle precursor, which develops 5 micron-length cracks.
These cracks are filled with metal and spray-coated at 500 degree Celsius to form a continuous tin oxide film on the metal mesh, Indrajit Mondal, PhD student at CeNS explained.
This is an alternative to the expensive ITO-coated glass (Indium tin oxide-coated glass) prevalent in the market. ITO-free transparent electrodes are 60-70 per cent cheaper than the ITO electrodes, said Mondal. An ITO electrode costs up to Rs 10,000 for one square foot.