Smart glass that could mean it’ll be curtains for curtains

CURTAINS are a familiar part of all our lives – but new technology means their usefulness could be drawing to a close.

And venetian blinds may also lose their pulling power.

Researchers have come up with a way of making glass windows switch from being transparent to opaque.

Similar technologies are already in use – Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner uses them – but the windows are relatively slow to change and are a drain on electricity.

The new glass requires no power to maintain its state, only a little electricity to switch from one shade to another, and is said to change much quicker.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology chemistry professor Mircea Dinca and doctoral student Khalid Al-Khabbi outlined their discovery in the journal Chem.

The windows work by sandwiching a sheet of electrochromic material – so called because electricity makes it change colour – between two glass panes.

To make their breakthrough, Professor Dinca’s team produced a coating that can go from clear to nearly black by blending two complementary colours – green and red. The professor said users ‘could flip a switch when the sun shines through the window, and turn it dark’. The material has been demonstrated in a laboratory and tests on a larger scale are now planned.