As an emerging energy conversion technology, electrochromism has attracted immense interest due to its various applications including variable optical filters, bistable displays and energy-efficient smart windows. Although the current electrochromic devices do not consume energy while maintaining their colored or colorless states, their bistable operation requires external electrical energy to be consumed during switching. As such, a novel design of Zn anodebased electrochromic devices was recently developed as a key strategy to partially retrieve the consumed electrical energy. Compared to conventional electrochromic devices, Zn anode-based electrochromic devices exhibit a rapid spontaneous switching behavior due to the high value of redox potential difference between a metal anode and an electrochromic cathode, thus providing the most energy-efficient consumption during operation. Moreover, Zn-based electrochromic devices enable independent operation of top and bottom electrochromic electrodes, thus providing additional configuration flexibility of the devices through the utilization of dual electrochromic layers under the same or different color states. As such, the color overlay effect can greatly broaden the color palettes via altering the coordinate of the 2D CIE color space. These key issues of Zn anode-based electrochromic devices make them very promising for the future development of electrochromic devices.
Plasmonic colors have gained significant interest for flat panel displays due to their broad color gamut and high subwavelength resolution. The reversible metal deposition, having tunable nanostructures, along with their localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR), is considered as a promising strategy for dynamic color displays. Herein, a demonstration of the manipulation of plasmonic silver adatoms through reversible metal deposition is presented for dynamic light modulation. The voltage-activated reversible silver nanoparticles deposition enables a wide range of dynamic plasmonic color change of 100 nm, and also facilitates a size and shape control of the grown silver nanoparticles. The silver nanoparticles interact with visible light through LSPR, the size and shape of the particles affect their optical properties. Our findings provide a favorable and novel platform for low energy-consumption tunable photonic and nanoplasmonic devices, as well as provide a simple and reliable process for rapid, scalable, and green preparation of tunable plasmonic Ag nanoparticles.
For application in flexible, electrochromic batteries, transparent, highly conductive and long lifetime electrolytes are necessary to achieve fast coloration and a maximum contrast. Based on a dimethyl-sulfoxide (DMSO) modified polyacrylamide (PAM) hydrogel, we developed a dual-ion Zn2+/Al3+ electrochromic battery consisting of a Zn anode and WO3 cathode. To overcome shortcomings of conventional hydrogel electrolytes, which experience low solvent retention, we introduce a DMSO:H2O mixed solvent polymerization process, which significantly increases the electrolyte retention of the hydrogel and therefore its lifetime for ionic conduction. The DMSO-modified electrolyte exhibits ionic conductivities up to 27 mS/cm at room temperature, while the formation of DMSO:H2O nanoclusters enables ionic conduction even at temperatures as low as -15°C and retention of ionic conduction over more than 28 days. The electrochromic battery based on the modified hydrogel exhibits a specific charge capacity of 16.9 μAh/cm2 at current densities of 200 μA/cm2 with 100% coulombic efficiency retention over 200 charge-discharge cycles. Based on a double layer architecture, the flexible battery shows a contrast of over 80% trough electrochromic coloration.
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