From Traditional to Novel Printed Electrochromic Devices: Material, Structure and Device

Electrochromic materials have been considered as a new way to achieve energy savings in the building sector due to their potential applications in smart windows, cars, aircrafts, etc. However, the high cost of manufacturing ECDs using the conventional manufacturing methods has limited its commercialization. It is the advantages of low cost as well as resource saving, green environment protection, flexibility and large area production that make printing electronic technology fit for manufacturing electrochromic devices. This paper reviews the progress of research on printed electrochromic devices (ECDs), detailing the preparation of ECDs by screen printing, inkjet printing and 3D printing, using the scientific properties of discrete definition printing method. Up to now, screen printing holds the largest share in the electrochromic industry due to its low cost and large ink output nature, which makes it suitable especially for printing on large surfaces. Though inkjet printing has the advantages of high precision and the highest coloration efficiency (CE) can be up to 542 ± 10 cm(2)C(–1), it has developed smoothly, and has not shown rigid needs. Inkjet printing is suitable for the personalized printing production of high precision and small batch electronic devices. Since 3D printing is a new manufacturing technology in the 21st century, with the characteristics of integrated molding and being highly controllable, which make it suitable for customized printing of complex devices, such as all kinds of sensors, it has gained increasing attention in the past decade. Finally, the possibility of combining screen printing with inkjet printing to produce high performance ECDs is discussed.