JP2001183709A - Light controlling body - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To inexpensively obtain a light controlling body exhibiting various appearances in which the tone in a transparent mode and the tone in a light- shielding mode varies depending on the temperature change. SOLUTION: The space between two transparent substrates facing each other having different tones is filled with a thermochromic material which reversibly changes between a transparent state and an opaque state by changes in the temperature. The tone is changed by heating or cooling with sun rays or a forcible heating device.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a dimmer having a decorative effect which can be used for various transparent substrates such as interior and exterior window materials for buildings, transparent substrates for show windows, window materials for vehicles and the like.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a light control glass to which various light control materials are applied has been known. Among them, an application in which a thermochromic material is applied to glass is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Hei 5-1.
No. 81169 discloses a light-shielding window material in which a light-shielding layer is formed by laminating a polymer material having a sol-gel transition at a temperature of 0 ° C. to 80 ° C. and having different light transmittances in a sol state and a gel state on a transparent plate. JP-A-10-316453 discloses a dimmable laminated glass in which a dimming layer made of an aqueous polyvinyl acetal solution having a cloud point due to a temperature change is sandwiched between two transparent plates. Discloses a laminate in which a polymer aqueous solution or hydrogel whose light transmission changes due to a change in aggregation of molecules dissolved in water due to an increase in temperature is laminated on a substrate which can be directly viewed.

[0003]

However, those disclosed in JP-A-5-181169, JP-A-6-80446 and JP-A-10-316453 change the state of transparency and opacity due to a change in temperature. And changes the transparency such as visible light transmittance, and the color tone is not described at all.

[0004]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and uses a transparent substrate having a different color tone as an opposing transparent substrate so that a thermochromic material becomes transparent due to a temperature change. It is an object of the present invention to provide, at low cost, a variety of dimmers in which the color tone when transparent and the color tone when shading change when the state and the cloudy state are reversibly changed.

That is, the dimmer of the present invention is filled with a thermochromic material, which is reversibly changed between a transparent state and a cloudy state due to a temperature change, between two opposing transparent substrates having different color tones. It is characterized by becoming.

[0006] Further, the dimmer of the present invention is characterized in that at least one of the transparent substrates has a surface coated with an electrically heatable transparent conductive film.

Further, the light control body of the present invention is characterized in that at least one of the transparent substrates has a surface coated with a pigment coloring film.

[0008]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS As a thermochromic material used in the present invention, a thermochromic material capable of reversibly changing between a transparent state and a cloudy state with a change in temperature is used. The thermochromic material is an aqueous solution of a nonionic surfactant or a nonionic water-soluble polymer that exhibits a cloud point phenomenon due to aggregation or dispersion, and is in a liquid or wet gel state. Specifically, a polysaccharide derivative having a hydroxypropyl group such as hydroxypropylcellulose, methylcellulose, or the like can be used. In particular, a water-soluble polymer having a hydroxypropyl group has a high degree of aggregation at high temperatures, and thus has excellent light-shielding properties in cloudy conditions.In particular, hydroxypropylcellulose is relatively inexpensive and easily available, and also has weather resistance. preferable.

In order to control the temperature at which the thermochromic material changes state, it is effective to add an electrolyte such as sodium chloride. Thereby, the temperature at which the state changes (from transparent to cloudy) can be shifted to a lower temperature side (for example, a temperature of about 20 to 25 ° C.). The temperature can also be controlled by adjusting the concentration of the electrolyte.

The heating and cooling of the thermochromic material can be carried out by irradiating sunlight, or at least one of the transparent substrates is coated with ITO (composite oxide of indium oxide and tin oxide) or NESA (oxidized oxide). The thermochromic material can be artificially and freely temperature-controlled by coating a transparent conductive film such as tin) and electrically heating the dimmer by applying a current to the conductive film. The thermochromic material is not limited to a form such as a film or a liquid.

The transparent substrate is not particularly limited, for example, one in which a colored film is coated on the surface of the transparent substrate by various coating methods, or one in which the transparent substrate itself is transparent or colored. Among them, a colored glass obtained by forming a colored film using an organic pigment by a dipping method, a roll coating method, or the like, and then firing it, can use a wide range of colors of the organic pigment. In addition, the coloring ability of the organic pigment is very high, and coloring can be sufficiently performed with a very thin film thickness of 100 to 500 nm. In addition, the amount of the organic pigment component in the film is small, and 300 to 600 ° C. Since it is completely thermally decomposed by firing at the above-mentioned temperature, it is possible to treat colored glass in the same way as ordinary clear glass during recycling. Therefore, there is a great merit over a colored glass manufactured by a melting method in which a transition metal is melted during melting and colored. As the organic pigment, phthalocyanine blue (blue), phthalocyanine green (green), diketopyrrolopyrrole red (pink), or the like can be used. Further, as the colored coating film, it is possible to coat the substrate surface with various colors such as blue, green, pink, gold, silver, and black. The glass substrate is not limited to glass, but may be transparent plastic.

When the transparent conductive film for temperature control and the organic pigment-dispersed colored film are used in combination with a transparent substrate such as a glass substrate, the outside is covered with the transparent conductive film, and the inside (the thermochromic material) is coated. Is preferably coated with an organic pigment-dispersed colored film. In addition, you may cover an organic pigment dispersion coloring film on a transparent conductive film. Further, for example, it is more preferable to use a colored transparent substrate in which characters or patterns are patterned on at least one of the transparent substrates using a flexographic printing method or the like, since the decorative effect is further increased.

Before filling the thermochromic material between the transparent substrates facing each other, it is necessary to seal the periphery of the transparent substrate. As the sealing material, it is necessary to select a material that suppresses evaporation or volatilization of the solvent of the filled thermochromic material, has good adhesiveness to the substrate, and satisfies these conditions for a long period of time under actual use conditions. For example, a butyl tape (TB-240 manufactured by Kyoritsu Chemical Co., Ltd.) formed in a belt shape can be used as the inner seal material, and thiocol can be used as the outer seal material.

The light control body of the present invention is used for building window materials such as skylights,
Partition materials, window materials for vehicles such as sunroofs, etc., can be used especially for decorative purposes in various applications such as industrial use.For example, as an example of use, in a place where a person looks from the outside, When transparent, generally use common-sense dark blue, and by raising the temperature, it is possible to make the color to suit your taste, such as blue on the outside and pink on the inside, and the combination of the colors is limited Not something.

[0015]

The present invention will be described below in detail with reference to examples.

Example 1 (1) Production of Colored Glass Substrate The glass substrate used in the present invention was produced by the following procedure. Methoxysilane oligomer (MS-5 manufactured by Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation)
1) A predetermined amount of a 1% aqueous nitric acid solution and ethanol were mixed, stirred at room temperature for 4 hours, and then aged for 12 hours. The amount of water to be added was 2 mol per 1 mol of the silica component in the oligomer, and the silica concentration in the sol was 16 wt%. An organic pigment dispersion (Fuji Dye) is added to this silica sol.
And the dilution solvent (ethanol) were respectively 1: 3: 6
To obtain a coating liquid for a colored film. The organic pigment dispersion used was phthalocyanine green (CI Pigment Green 36: green), diketopyrrolopyrrole red (CI Pigage).
mnt Red 264: pink), and two kinds of coating liquids diluted to a concentration of 1 wt% with 2-propanol as a diluent were used.

A colored film is formed on each of two soda-lime silica glass substrates (2 m × 1 m × 4 mm thick) by dipping, and then heat-treated at 300 to 400 ° C. to form a colored glass substrate having a green color and a pink color. Were produced. The environment at the time of film formation is 25 ° C., 40 ° C.
６０60%, and the lifting speed of the substrate was 2-12 mm / s.

(2) Preparation of light control body As shown in FIG. 1, a light control body 1 according to this embodiment has a light control body 1 coated with a glass substrate 2 coated with a green colored film and a pink colored film. Glass substrates 3 are opposed to each other, and the outer periphery is sealed with a sealing material 4 (SM8000, manufactured by Yokohama Rubber Co., Ltd.).
(Hydroxypropylcellulose) was prepared by filling a 20% by weight aqueous solution 5 into the gap between the glass substrates.

(3) Color Tone The light modulating body 1 produced above is transparent at a normal temperature and has a warm red color, but when the light modulating body is heated to a temperature of 52 ° C. or more by sunlight, the thermochromic material 5 becomes transparent. It was observed that the dimmer became cloudy and acted as a reflector, and that the dimmer was bright green when viewed from the glass substrate 2 side and pink when viewed from the other glass substrate 3 side. In this case, the light was lost and the light was not shielded.

(Embodiment 2) In this embodiment, a dimming body was produced in the same manner as in Embodiment 1 except that a blue coloring film was used instead of the green coloring film in comparison with Embodiment 1. Note that the blue colored film is made of phthalocyanine blue (C.I.
Pigment Blue (15: 3: blue). The dimmer 1 is blue and transparent, which is slightly blackish at room temperature. However, when the dimmer is heated to 52 ° C. or more by sunlight, the thermochromic material becomes cloudy and acts as a reflector, and the glass substrate becomes transparent. The color was bright blue when viewed from one side and pink when viewed from the other.

Example 3 In this example, a dimmer was produced in the same manner as in Example 1 except that a blue colored film was used instead of the pink colored film in comparison with Example 1. The blue colored film was formed by using phthalocyanine blue (CI Pigment Blue 15: 15) as a pigment in the same manner as in Example 2.
3: blue). The dimmer 1 is slightly dark green and transparent at room temperature, but the dimmer is 52 ° C.
When heated as described above, the thermochromic material became cloudy and formed a reflector, which was bright green when viewed from one side and blue when viewed from the other.

Example 4 The dimmer of this example had the same configuration as that of Example 1 except that a 20% by weight aqueous solution of hydroxypropylcellulose manufactured by Kishida Chemical was used for the thermochromic material. When this dimmer is heated to 48 ° C. or more by sunlight, the thermochromic material becomes cloudy and acts as a reflector, and when viewed from one side of the substrate, it is bright green.
Seen from the other side, it becomes pink.

(Example 5) The light modulating body of this example was prepared by mixing a thermochromic material with a mixture of hydroxypropylcellulose (manufactured by Kishida Chemical) and Nippon Soda's HPC-L at a weight ratio of 25: 1. A light modulating body was prepared in the same manner as in Example 1 except that a% aqueous solution was used. When the dimmer is heated to 45 ° C. or higher by sunlight, the thermochromic material becomes cloudy and acts as a reflector, and is bright green when viewed from one side, and pink when viewed from the other side.

(Example 6) The light modulating body of this example is a thermochromic material comprising hydroxypropylcellulose (manufactured by Tokyo Kasei) and a 2% aqueous sodium chloride solution at a weight ratio of 1:
A light modulating body was produced in the same manner as in Example 1, except that the mixture was used at a ratio of 4. When the dimmer is heated to about 40 ° C. or higher by sunlight, the thermochromic material becomes cloudy and acts as a reflector, and is bright green when viewed from one side of the substrate and pink when viewed from the other side. Become.

(Embodiment 7) In this embodiment, as shown in FIG. 2, a glass substrate 8 coated with a tin oxide film as a transparent conductive film 7 is used instead of the pink colored film as compared with the embodiment 1,
Other than that, the light control body 6 was produced in the same manner as in Example 1. The transparent conductive film 7 is slightly larger than the other glass substrate 2 and a stainless steel conductive clip 9 is used as a bus bar, and soldering is performed with a lead wire 10 and a solder 11 so that electricity can be supplied. . When AC100V was applied, the temperature was raised from room temperature (22 ° C.) to 55 ° C. in 10 seconds, and the thermochromic material 5 became cloudy, became cloudy from the transparent conductive film side, and became pink from the pink colored film side. .

[0026]

According to the present invention, when a transparent substrate having a different color tone is used as a transparent substrate facing each other, when the thermochromic material changes reversibly between a transparent state and a cloudy state depending on the temperature, the transparent state of the thermochromic material is reduced. There is an advantage that a dimmer having a variety of reflection color tones having different color tones and shades at the time of shading can be manufactured at low cost.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic view of a light control body according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 shows a schematic view of a light control body of Example 7 of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Dimmer 2 Glass substrate 3 Glass substrate 4 Sealing material 5 Thermochromic material 6 Dimmer 7 Transparent conductive film 8 Glass substrate 9 Conductive clip 10 Lead wire 11 Solder

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (72) Inventor Yoshinori Akamatsu 1510 Oguchi-cho, Matsusaka-shi, Mie Central Glass Co., Ltd. Inside Glass Laboratory Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Takashi Iwano 1510 Oguchi-cho, Matsusaka-shi, Mie Prefecture Central Glass Co., Ltd. Term (reference) 4F100 AA20 AG00 AR00C AT00A AT00B BA03 BA04 BA07 BA10A BA10B BA10D CA13 EH46 EH462 GB08 GB33 HB00A HB00B JG01D JL10A JL10B JM01 JN01A JN01B JN01C JN01D JN02C

Claims (3)

[Claims] A thermochromic material, wherein a thermochromic material that changes reversibly between a transparent state and a cloudy state due to a temperature change is filled between two opposing transparent substrates having different color tones. Light body. 2. The dimmer according to claim 1, wherein at least one of the transparent substrates has a surface coated with an electrically heatable transparent conductive film. 3. The dimmer according to claim 1, wherein the at least one transparent substrate has a surface coated with a pigment coloring film.