2021/06/20 by Ying Zhong, Zhong, Ying, Rui Kou +5
Engineering · #Advanced Sensor and Energy Harvesting Materials #Applied Physics (physics.app-ph) #Dielectric materials and actuators #FOS: Physical sciences #Thermal Radiation and Cooling Technologies
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2106.10749
openalex publication_date 2021/06/20 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The poor thermal insulating building windows, especially single pane windows, are wasting ~7% of the total energy consumed by the U.S. every year. This paper presents an electrostatic force suspended polymer-air multilayer (EPAM) structure as a highly transparent and energy efficient window retrofitting solution for low-income single pane window users. To provide controllable and stable suspension force between large size compliant polymer films without deteriorating their visual transmittance (Vt), corona discharge (CD) was induced to permanently charge polymer films, leading to controllable permanent surface potential difference between two sides of CD charged films. Liquid-solid contact electrification (CE) was combined with CD to realize precise control of the surface potential of each side of polymer films. CD+CE treated films can obtain programmable and stable electrostatic forces to form resilient EPAM structures for cost and energy effective window retrofitting purpose. The resilient EPAM retrofitted windows can provide U-factor lower than 0.5 Btu/hr/ft2/°F, Vt higher than 70%, haze lower than 1.6% at cost lower than 7.4/ft2, at least 10 times cheaper than double pane windows. The energy saved by EPAM can reach as much as the order of 106 kJ/m2 per year. The CD+CE surface potential programming solution also provides a highly repeatable and controllable way for other electrical potential related technologies.