Tag Archives: elastomers

Tune your windows for privacy

Caption: With an applied voltage, the nanowires on either side of the glass become attracted to each other and move toward each other, squeezing and deforming the soft elastomer. Because the nanowires are scattered unevenly across the surface, the elastomer deforms unevenly. That uneven roughness causes light to scatter, turning the glass opaque. Credit: David Clarke/Harvard SEAS [School of Engineering and Applied Sciences]

Right now, this is my favourite science illustration. A March 14, 2016 news item on Nanowerk announces Harvard’s new technology that can turn a clear window into an opaque one at the touch of a switch,

Say goodbye to blinds.

Researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have developed a technique that can quickly change the opacity of a window, turning it cloudy, clear or somewhere in between with the flick of a switch.

Tunable windows aren’t new but most previous technologies have relied on electrochemical reactions achieved through expensive manufacturing. This technology, developed by David Clarke, the Extended Tarr Family Professor of Materials, and postdoctoral fellow Samuel Shian, uses geometry [to] adjust the transparency of a window.

A March 14, 2016 Harvard University news release (also on EurekAlert) by Leah Burrows, which originated the news item, describes the technology in more detail,

The tunable window is comprised of a sheet of glass or plastic, sandwiched between transparent, soft elastomers sprayed with a coating of silver nanowires, too small to scatter light on their own.

But apply an electric voltage and things change quickly.

With an applied voltage, the nanowires on either side of the glass are energized to move toward each other, squeezing and deforming the soft elastomer. Because the nanowires are distributed unevenly across the surface, the elastomer deforms unevenly. The resulting uneven roughness causes light to scatter, turning the glass opaque.

The change happens in less than a second.

It’s like a frozen pond, said Shian.

“If the frozen pond is smooth, you can see through the ice. But if the ice is heavily scratched, you can’t see through,” said Shian.

Clarke and Shian found that the roughness of the elastomer surface depended on the voltage, so if you wanted a window that is only light clouded, you would apply less voltage than if you wanted a totally opaque window.

“Because this is a physical phenomenon rather than based on a chemical reaction, it is a simpler and potentially cheaper way to achieve commercial tunable windows,” said Clarke.

Current chemical-based controllable windows use vacuum deposition to coat the glass, a process that deposits layers of a material molecule by molecule. It’s expensive and painstaking. In Clarke and Shian’s method, the nanowire layer can be sprayed or peeled onto the elastomer, making the technology scalable for larger architectural projects.

Next the team is working on incorporating thinner elastomers, which would require lower voltages, more suited for standard electronical supplies.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Electrically tunable window device by Samuel Shian and David R. Clarke. Optics Letters Vol. 41, Issue 6, pp. 1289-1292 (2016) •doi: 10.1364/OL.41.001289

This is an open access paper.

No more boat scraping with new coating from Duke University

There’s a lot of interest in finding ways to discourage bacteria from growing on various surfaces, for example, Sharklet, which is based on nanostructures on sharkskin, is a product being developed for hospitals (my Feb. 10, 2011 posting) and there are polymers that ‘uninvite’ bacteria at the University of Nottingham (my Aug. 13, 2012 posting).

A Jan. 31, 2013 news item on Nanowerk highlights the latest work being done at Duke University,

Duke University engineers have developed a material that can be applied like paint to the hull of a ship and will literally be able to dislodge bacteria, keeping it from accumulating on the ship’s surface. This buildup on ships increases drag and reduces the energy efficiency of the vessel, as well as blocking or clogging undersea sensors.

The team’s research was published online,

Bioinspired Surfaces with Dynamic Topography for Active Control of Biofouling by Phanindhar Shivapooja, Qiming Wang, Beatriz Orihuela, Daniel Rittschof, Gabriel P. López1, Xuanhe Zhao. Advanced Materials, Article first published online: 6 JAN 2013, DOI: 10.1002/adma.201203374

Copyright © 2013 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

The article is behind a paywall but the abstract is freely available,

Dynamic change of surface area and topology of elastomers is used as a general, environmentally friendly approach for effectively detaching micro- and macro-fouling organisms adhered on the elastomer surfaces. Deformation of elastomer surfaces under electrical or pneumatic actuation can debond various biofilms and barnacles. The bio-inspired dynamic surfaces can be fabricated over large areas through simple and practical processes. This new mechanism is complementary with existing materials and methods for biofouling control.

Duke University’s Jan. 31, 2013 news release by Richard Merritt, which originated the news item, provides more detail from the researchers,

“We have developed a material that ‘wrinkles,’ or changes it surface in response to a stimulus, such as stretching or pressure or electricity,” said Duke engineer Xuanhe Zhao, assistant professor in Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering. “This deformation can effectively detach biofilms and other organisms that have accumulated on the surface.”

Zhao has already demonstrated the ability of electric current to deform, or change, the surface of polymers.

The researchers tested their approach in the laboratory with simulated seawater, as well as on barnacles. These experiments were conducted in collaboration with Daniel Rittsch of the Duke University Marine Lab in Beaufort, N.C.

Keeping bacteria from attaching to ship hulls or other submerged objects can prevent a larger cascade of events that can reduce performance or efficiency. Once they have taken up residence on a surface, bacteria often attract larger organisms, such as seaweed and larva of other marine organisms, such as worms, bivalves, barnacles or mussels.

There are other ways to introduce efficiencies in marine transp0rtation as per my June 27, 2012 posting about Zyvex Marine and its new composites which will make for lighter vessels.