Thermochromic VO2–SiO2 composite coating from ammonium citrato-oxovanadate(IV).

Vanadium dioxide (VO2) coating plays an important role in energy saving and environmental protection due to its unique reversible phase transition. To solve the daylighting issue of VO2 coating, a VO2 (M)–silicon dioxide (SiO2) composite coating is fabricated from ammonium citrato-oxovanadate(IV) by a SiO2-assisted coating method. The VO2 (M)–SiO2 composite coating possesses excellent thermochromic properties that have produced varying results, i.e. 49.2% of visible transmittance, 52.3% of transmittance reduction at 2000 nm wavelength, 12% of solar energy modulation (ΔTsol) and a phase transition temperature of 56.0 °C. Our findings may pave the way to extending the large-scale application of smart windows based on thermochromic VO2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]