Authors: Xi Ren, Shengyu Hu, Zhuofei Jia, Tingting Qin, Yiming Sui, Fangcheng Wang, Weisheng Pan, Cheng Yang
Published: 2022-07-21
Source: Full article
AbstractElectrochromic (EC) smart windows offer a promising paradigm for intelligent control of heat and light, reducing ≈40% building‐energy expenses, which are widely expected as a key contributor to future global carbon neutrality and sustainability. Enabling arbitrarily shaped EC film devices can unlock promising capabilities in various smart building systems and intelligent color‐changeable wearable devices. Regrettably, their wide deployment has been largely limited by the complicated edge encapsulation processes; otherwise, the leakage/loss of electrolyte and environmental corrosions would rapidly lead to device failure. This article reports a blood coagulation‐analogous strategy to tackle this critical challenge by introducing an oxygen‐sensitive prepolymer (i.e., alkyd resin) as the electrolyte additive, making it free of packaging. When exposed to the air, this prepolymer can rapidly cure and form a dense solid barrier through a free radical reaction with the CH bond on the 1,4‐diene side chains, without sacrificing any EC performances, including excellent mechanical flexibility and robustness. Besides the fast self‐packageable and arbitrarily tailorable capabilities, they can also deliver outstanding environmental‐stability after harsh aging. This mechanism potentially makes large‐scale customized production and thus the application of EC devices become possible and may significantly boost the broad application of such a sustainable and fashionable technology.