Study and Development of near-Infrared Reflective and Absorptive Materials for Energy Saving Application

Near-Infrared (NIR) materials find applications in the field of energy saving. Both NIR reflective and absorptive materials can be used as energy saving materials with different working principles. The reflective materials can reflect the NIR light preventing it from being transmitted. Silver thin films are the best option as reflective films based on its reflectivity and cost. On the other hand, NIR absorptive materials can effectively convert the absorbed NIR light from sunlight to heat or electric energy.;In part 1, different solution based methods of preparing silver thin films were studied. A silver nanoparticles solution was used to make thin film by a spray-pyrolysis process. Another method involved the surface activation with a fluoro-compound or silver nanoparticles followed by electroless silver plating on different substrates. Both methods could be processed at low cost. The obtained silver films showed NIR reflection of 50∼90% with transmission of 15-28% in the visible region.;In part 2, two Nickel coordination polymers were explored. Tetraamino compounds were used as bridging ligands to increase the scope of electronic delocalization and metal-ligand orbital overlap which would reduce the energy gap to the NIR region. As a result, both polymers showed broad NIR absorption with maximum of 835 and 880 nm, respectively. In addition, the polymer showed NIR halochromism. This ground study pointed out both Ni coordination polymers as NIR absorptive materials with NIR halochromism.;The first part of this research explored methods of preparing silver thin films that could be processed at low cost. The second part involved the design, synthesis and characterization of nickel coordination polymers as NIR absorptive materials.