The researchers at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) guwahati has developed a smart window material which can be used for automatic climate control in buildings. The material is capable to control the amount of heat and light passing through it on the basis of applied voltage across it.
The research and development of this material is done by a research scholar of the institute, Ashish Kumar Chowdhary under the guidance of his mentor Dr Debabrata Sikdar, the Assistant Professor for Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering.
Mr. Ashish kumar Chowdhary has developed this material as a project under his fellowship research program for the doctoral degree. The research has been approved by the IIT’s Board of Experts and is published in the journal of Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells.
The smart material is designed on the basis of concepts of reusable solar energy. This enables the use of material in wide range of field and products. The material can efficiently be used in climate control for buildings, vehicles, locomotives, airplanes, industries and greenhouses.
Dr. Sikdar in a press release said that “There has been increased attention to sustainable architectural designs for better light and heat management in buildings in recent years, and deploying smart windows is the first step for such structure.”
He metioned that windows currently used are built with a static structure according to the climate of the region. The climate changes but the heat and energy flow across windows remains constant. While the smart windows we have designed works on the opposite phenomenon.
The emergent smart windows can dynamically adjust the amount of heat and light radiations passing through it and entering the building. This process completely works as the response to the change in external climatic conditions. Overall, this will conserve the energy of the building.