Research and practice: Electrochromic glazing - Properties and design guidelines
Electrochromism has been known since the 19th century, and its application as a glazing technology has been investigated since the 1980s. However, it is only recently with major new investment and scaled-up production that electochromic (EC) glazing has shown the potential to become a mainstream product. EC glass is manufactured by coating float glass with nano-layers of metal oxides using a sputter deposition system. It is a process similar to that used to manufacture low-e glass. The coated glass is then fabricated into an insulating glass unit (IGU). The control of EC glazing can be any combination of manual and automatic, employing whatever sensor inputs are required, e.g. illuminance levels, sun position,or internal air temperature (fig. 1).
