|
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.
|
