Reversible Nickel Electrodeposition Electrolytes for Dynamic Window Applications

Abstract

Amid the energy crisis, reducing energy consumption has become a growing field of energy research. When analyzing energy usage, buildings are responsible for 30% of global energy consumption.1 One of the ways to reduce this enormous energy consumption in buildings is to reduce the amount of heating, cooling, and air conditioning needed to provide comfortable work and living spaces. In this regard, dynamic windows are an innovative approach to increasing building energy efficiency as they electronically switch between light and dark states.2 By controlling the transparency of the window, dynamic windows help control the temperature of a space and, therefore, save on average 10% of energy consumption in buildings.3 Reversible metal electrodeposition (RME) provides a method of constructing dynamic windows that possess color neutrality, high switching speed between dark and light states, low cost, and durability over thousands of cycles.4 In recent years, zinc has emerged as a standout metal for application in dynamic windows.2,5 However, the interactions of the deposited zinc film with the surrounding water in the aqueous electrolytes can slowly deteriorate device performance.6 To ameliorate the situation, we are developing dynamic windows with nonaqueous nickel electrolytes, which have many of the advantageous properties of typical RME dynamic windows, but are more robust than analogous zinc systems.