In recent years, a new type of material has emerged in the field of global industrial science and technology - electrochromic materials. Industry insiders pointed out that electrochromic materials are currently one of the most promising smart materials for research and application, which have been active in academia for nearly half a century, although they have huge business prospects. The combination of electrochromic materials and different functional layers to make electrochromic devices with different functions can not only be used in civil buildings, but also can be used in aircraft and cars to adjust the purpose of light and temperature, and people can adjust according to their own needs to bring a comfortable experience.
Taking the anti-glare rearview mirror of the car as an example, the application of electrochromic technology is a just need. As early as 1974, a company called Grantex (i.e. Jingtai) used violet essence as a color-changing layer, based on a structure similar to the "electroplating pool" to achieve glass discoloration and achieve anti-glare purposes, monopolizing the market for automatic anti-glare rearview mirrors. However, due to technical and process reasons, there are also problems such as drivers driving at night, the headlights of the car behind them, and blinding when hitting the rearview mirrors. In addition, with the increase and enlargement of smart electric vehicle screens, the sunlight exposure in the use of automobiles leads to pain points such as unclear display of screen content, and there is also an urgent need for new materials that can automatically select the amount of light transmittance.
However, Jingtai's material system and manufacturing process cannot meet the current needs. In particular, when the glass area is large, the speed of color change of the first generation of Jingtai scheme will become slower. For example, the discoloration time of the side windows of the Boeing 787 takes 3 minutes. The most important point is that the manufacturing process of the glass substrate makes it impossible for Jingtai to process large areas of surfaces.
In 1989, a company called Sage developed a new generation of electrochromic glass based on tungsten oxide as a color-changing layer. Sage's tungsten oxide is solid and can be plated directly on glass, solving the problem of making large pieces of glass, and in 2005 successfully applied a "canopy" of controlled light and heat on a Ferrari Superamerica. The R&D team of Guangyi Technology found that the tungsten oxide technology route chosen by Sage, in addition to not being able to do surface processing, still has drawbacks such as the need for customized production and heavy asset mode, which restricts the large-scale development of electrochromic materials and industries.
In view of this, after years of in-depth research on the electrochromic industry, the R&D team of Guangyi Technology has summarized and found the basic principles of the large-scale development of the industry:
1. The form of the material needs to be solid and not liquid, and the liquid material is the bottleneck of manufacturing.
2. The substrate can not be glass can only be a film, the current glass as the substrate, can only be produced one by one, if it is a film, it can be roll-to-roll production, the production efficiency of the coating will be greatly improved.
3. Be sure to do the cost comprehensively.
This requires That Guangyi Technology must reconstruct the entire material system of electrochromic discoloration, including the electrochromic layer, the electrolyte layer and the ion storage layer, and the entire manufacturing process. Fortunately, the founding team of Guangyi Technology has the world's top experts in this field, through the combination of independently developed materials and processes, gradually breaking through the problems of poor stability, low reliability and single function of traditional electrochromic technology, and successfully developed the third generation of flexible solid-state electrochromic materials and redefined the possibility of electrochromic technology. 、
Compared with the previous two generations of electrochromic technology routes, the third generation of electrochromic technology solution of Guangyi Technology is to coat a nano-level electrochromic layer on a micron-level film, and coat a nano-scale ion layer on another film, and the two films are bonded together through a solid electrolyte layer. Nanoscale electrochromic material coatings place extremely stringent requirements on uniformity in thickness. The film substrate with a width of 2000 mm is fed into the coating machine at a speed of nearly 30 meters per minute through the roller, and the nozzle of the coating machine is evenly sprayed on the film substrate. In order to ensure uniformity and consistency, not only the thickness and thickness of the spray solution should be consistent, but also the volatilization of the solution on the film plane after the coating is completed.
Consistency is the guarantee of product performance and reliability, and is one of the guarantees that subsequent ions enter the electrochromic layer through the solid electrolyte, and return to the ion layer from the electrochromic layer, and can reach 100,000 cycles back and forth. The founding team of Guangyi Technology understands that in order to do this industry, it is necessary to solve the problem of efficient process, and the power battery industry has proved the significance of roll-to-roll high-speed coaters.
In August 2019, after continuously optimizing materials, optimizing film substrates and improving coating equipment, Guangyi Technology for the first time ran through the process of high-speed coating production of electrochromic materials with film as the substrate - flexible film substrate and more efficient capacity roll-to-roll (R2R) production process, which has also become an accelerator for the wide application of electrochromic technology. Compared with the previous two generations of electrochromic technology routes, the third generation of electrochromic color-changing technology of Guangyi Technology has higher commercial value, with significant advantages such as low haze, customization, lightweight, low voltage and high curvature.
In November 2021, the first extreme Kryptonian 001 equipped with the electrochromic canopy of Guangyi Technology and achieved mass production attracted the attention of the industry, and then the launch of GAC Aean S PLUS brought the third-generation electrochromic color-changing technology of Guangyi Technology into the public eye. It is understood that in 2023, at least 5 of the main products of the new car-making forces will use the Canopy solution of Guangyi Technology. In the near future, it is believed that Guangyi Technology, which has comprehensively overcome the problems of light control and heat control of the whole vehicle, will create a more private light control and comfortable heat control upgrade experience.
(Source: Reprinted on the Internet)