Solar energy as a renewable clean energy in today's world has attracted much attention. With the vigorous promotion of photovoltaic power generation, the solar photovoltaic glass market has great potential. However, while the application of photovoltaic glass brings energy saving and environmental protection gospel, cleaning and cleaning problems follow. The traditional glass cleaning method has the defect of expensive and poor effect, and how to make the glass have self-cleaning function has always been an important problem for enterprises and consumers in the glass industry.
▲The main member of the "Cloud Creation Self-Cleaning Coating" project: Li Shuyin
In 2019, the Yunchuang Coating Project came into being in this context. Li Shuyin from Shanghai Dianji University is one of the team members of the project, and she brought the expectations and technology of her team to participate in the "Liren Maker" innovation and entrepreneurship competition. The technical team of Yunchuang Coating Project simulates the bionic manufacturing of lotus leaves, so that the glass coating has a good superhydrophobic and superoleophobic effect, and through the rolling of rain on the glass surface, it takes away the surface dirt and realizes the self-cleaning of photovoltaic glass. Prevent photovoltaic glass from damaging production efficiency due to dust, water stains and oil stains that cannot be cleaned in time and effectively, and effectively improve the practicality and sustainability of photovoltaic glass.
The six members of the Yunchuang Coating project team met at the Dream Building Club of Shanghai Dianji University, which belongs to the School of Materials and focuses on science and technology innovation and the transformation of scientific and technological achievements. The project was initially led by Ding Zijun from the School of Materials, and then attracted other members to join. Everyone in the team has played their own advantages: Ding Zijun has an understanding of the current development of the new energy industry and is responsible for planning the future development of the project; Li Shuyin is creative and has rich social practice experience, responsible for the promotion and marketing of products and the after-sales treatment of products; Wang Mengbo is responsible for various raw material inspections, questioning and handling opinions on quality problems, and statistical work on product quality; Huang Ziyao is mainly engaged in the research of self-cleaning surface coatings, with excellent professional knowledge and strong innovation ability. Responsible for product research and development; Gao Qing has good communication skills, responsible for recruiting employees, management personnel and performance appraisal; Zhang Xinlei understands the market dynamics of similar products and boldly imagines the development trend of future products according to changes in market information.
▲"Cloud created self-cleaning coating" project
In the preliminary market research, the team learned that there is a huge gap in the photovoltaic glass market. With the dwindling of fossil fuels and the environmental pollution caused by their combustion, the problem of environmental pollution is becoming more and more serious. At the moment when the concept of environmental protection is deepening, solar energy as a sustainable clean energy is bound to receive a lot of attention from the scientific and technological community. China's solar energy resources are very rich, its development and utilization potential is broad, therefore, the Chinese market has a great demand for solar photovoltaic glass, is an urgent market to be developed. However, there are also pain points in the photovoltaic glass industry. The team found that photovoltaic glass in the process of putting into use is fraught with problems, because photovoltaic glass is usually used outdoors, easy to contaminate water stains, dust, oil, resulting in low surface light transmittance of glass, is not conducive to the conversion of light, thereby affecting the efficiency of power generation, resulting in economic losses. From this point of view, the effective research and development and use of glass cleaning technology will have a huge effect on improving the efficiency of solar energy use.
After targeting the field of glass cleaning, the Yunchuang team continued to understand that the traditional glass cleaning methods include manual cleaning and mechanical cleaning, which have high labor costs and maintenance costs, and are difficult and inefficient to clean, and may damage the glass surface coating during the cleaning process. Therefore, the development of a low-cost, high-efficiency self-cleaning glass coating will gain core competitiveness in the glass market.
The main force of technology locks the lotus leaf with hydrophobic characteristics in many materials, and the small water droplets fall on the surface of the lotus leaf and easily condense into large water droplets, and the water droplets will take away the stains during their continuous rolling, so that the lotus leaf surface looks new. If the surface of the glass can also be like a lotus leaf, then the cleaning problem of the glass will be solved. Using biomimetic technology, the team created a glass coating that would be self-cleaning and was superhydrophobic, superoleophobic, and highly transparent. "Compared with the traditional glass cleaning frequency once a month, self-cleaning photovoltaic glass can be cleaned only once a year, or even do not need to be cleaned." The team uses the coating design of nano-silica, so that it can still have a long service life under extreme working conditions, and the transparency is higher than that of ordinary glass, and the preparation method of the chemical deposition technology used in the coating is a simple and easy-to-control preparation scheme, which can quickly prepare large areas and large quantities of self-cleaning thin film coatings, which has a good cost advantage in the market.
Hydrophobic properties of lotus leaves
▲The superhydrophobic characteristics of "Yunchuang self-cleaning coating" products
With the core technology in place, the next step is to put the product into production and marketing. With the deepening of digital transformation embedded in social development, industrial digitalization has become the general trend of the digital age. How to exert the value of digitalization to help products enter the market and accurately match supply and demand is a problem that the team must deal with. In the interview, Li Shuyin mentioned the team's future planning in the layout of the sales network, and she believes that the digital transformation of the industry is a good opportunity. In the future, Yunchuang Self-Cleaning Coating will expand the popularity and sales volume of products through digital means such as official website release, e-commerce platform exhibition, and mass app dissemination, and will also be combined with offline distribution companies to create a sales network that combines online and offline.
At present, the team has made priority progress in technology, and its scientific research results have published four related SCI papers, Chinese core journal papers, and obtained one invention patent. In terms of technical cooperation, the self-cleaning coating product has passed the technical appraisal of the relevant company and been recognized by the company, and the two sides are expected to reach long-term cooperation in the future; in terms of project financing, the team has reached an agreement with Shanghai Ziyi Measurement and Control Technology Co., Ltd., Shanghai Hongyu Supply Chain Co., Ltd. and other companies to provide strong financial support for the project to promote technological development and put into the market.
Li Shuyin said in an interview that the product will be oriented to automotive glass, glass curtain wall, power electronics, military field, furniture anti-fouling glass and other diversified fields in the future. In terms of business strategy, the team will first attract investment, convert patented products into commodities in the incubation base, and then carry out technical cooperation with photovoltaic glass manufacturers to produce patented products on a contracted basis and expand the scale of production. On this basis, we will establish a supply relationship with photovoltaic manufacturers and use online and offline marketing methods to establish a stable sales network. Although the team still faces some unknowns, she said that everyone will continue to explore with a positive and optimistic attitude.
▲Li Shuyin represented the team to participate in the Pudong New Area "Li ren maker" women's innovation and entrepreneurship competition
It is worth noting that 3 of the 6 people in the entrepreneurial team of Yunchuang Self-Cleaning Coating are girls. As a student of the School of Materials Science of Shanghai Dianji University, Li Shuyin recalled her consideration when choosing a major in the college entrance examination, and was not subject to the social prejudice of "boys are more suitable for science than girls", and she knows that girls can also do well in the field of science and technology. Talking about the theme of the Pudong New Area "Liren Maker" Women's Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition, "Toward Goodness and Beauty", Li Shuyin believes that kindness is a kind of social responsibility, and the Yunchuang Self-Cleaning Coating Project itself is carried out because of social responsibility. The most important thing about their products is environmental protection, which can achieve sustainable development, save time and effort. As far as beauty is concerned, the presentation of photovoltaic glass also has a good sense of design, and its transparent appearance contains the beauty of science and technology.
During the interview, Li Shuyin was very grateful for the opportunity provided by the "Liren Maker" Women's Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition in Pudong New Area, and the senior instructors in the event gave her and her team great help. In the process, she has just turned nineteen this year, and she continues to challenge herself and improve herself, so that she can meet more possibilities with an optimistic attitude. At the same time, she encourages the sisters around her to discover the beauty of the subtleties in life, and through the power of her own technology, she will bring more beautiful lives to everyone. As a female college student, she also suggested that college students need to carefully consider entrepreneurship and then carry out, to balance the relationship between academics and entrepreneurship, if the academic side is facing greater pressure, entrepreneurship still needs to be carefully considered.