Thermochromic LC Glass,one kind of the temperature controlled smart glass, is applied in building curtain wall or windows for sunlight protection to reduce glare and reject heating from Sun.
When the thermochromic LC glass exposed to sunlight, the heat from sun warmed the glass. As it reaches the setting temperature, the LC glass gets frosted gradually. When sunlight gets weak, the temperature of glass decrease gradually, thus the glass appears transparent just like normal glass.
This process happens repeatedly without extra power or extra personnel to take care of.
The thermochromic LC glass is activated by the change of environmental temperature to alter its own shading condition and eventually save energy for buildings.
The LC shows small molecule at low temperature, the sunlight passes through.
When the environmental temperature is lower than LC memory temperature, the nanoparticles is smaller than sunlight wavelength and sunlight could go through completely and glass is transparent.
The LC shows large molecule at high temperature, the sunlight gets partially blocked.
When the environment temperature is higher than memory temperature, the nanoparticles gets together and becomes nanocluster. When the size of nanocluster is bigger than sunlight wavelenghth, part of sunlight is blocked and some of sunlight refracted through the glass which then becomes frosted and sunlight rejected.
In the morning and afternoon, more light pass through the glass as we need because the temperature is low and the glass is transparent. At noon, the glass turns to frosted to reject more heat because the temperature of glass is high. So the glass saves more energy by the adaptive adjustment.
