Windows let light into your interior spaces but can also bring unwanted heat. The air conditioners then need to work really hard to cool them down. To solve this problem and to enhance energy savings with quantum window technology, researchers are adopting transparent radiative cooler (TRC) coating.
Tengfei Luo, Dorini Family Professor of Energy Studies at the University of Notre Dame, and postdoctoral associate Seongmin Kim have developed a transparent coating for windows.
This coating or transparent radiative cooler (TRC) is able to block heat-generating ultraviolet and infrared light. Regardless of the sun’s angle, it only lets in visible light. It can be used on existing windows and automobiles and help minimize air conditioning costs by over one-third in hot climates.
Efficient Design to Tackle Changing Sun Angles
Tengfie Luo, the lead author of the study said, “The angle between the sunshine and your window is always changing. Our coating maintains functionality and efficiency whatever the sun’s position in the sky.”
In many recent studies, the window coatings only optimized the light that enters a room at a right angle. But this isn’t feasible. At noon, which is mostly the hottest time of the day, the sun’s rays tend the enter vertically installed windows at oblique angles.
Innovative Materials and Techniques
Previously, Prof. Luo along with his postdoctoral associate Seongmin Kim built a fabricated transparent window coating by taking a glass base and stacking ultra-thin layers of alumina, silica, and titanium oxide on it. A micrometer-thick silicon polymer was also added to it. This addition helps enhance the cooling power of the structure. This lets it reflect the thermal radiation via the atmospheric window and into outer space.
Professor Luo said, “Additional optimization of the order of the layers was necessary to ensure the coating would accommodate multiple angles of solar light. However, a trial-and-error approach was not practical, given the immense number of possible combinations.”
The researchers realized that to find the accurate combination of materials and layers, they needed to optimize the process. So, to optimize the process, both Prof. Luo and Kim made a computational model. They then used quantum machine learning (QML) algorithms to find the best combinations of layers and materials.
But what do you think, do closing blinds save energy?
Results and Applications
- The material ended up being a 1.2-micron-thick transparent window coating.
- It seems to work better than the other similar products on the market.
- Their model created a coating that was able to both maintain transparency as well as reduce temperature (by 5.4 to 7.2 degrees Celsius or 9.7 to 13 degrees Fahrenheit).
- It was able to perform this in a model room even when the light was transmitted in a wide range of angles.
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This project shows how quantum computing can really help in the research process. It can be used to design various materials with intricate properties. Thus energy savings with quantum window technology can be a great aid for many different fields.
Source: Engineers use quantum computing to develop transparent window coating that blocks heat
