(144c) Cool Plastics for Energy Sustainability

With seabirds trapped in multipack drink rings, and mid-ocean islands of indestructible rubbish, the idea that plastics could play a big part in a sustainable future world might seem far-fetched. However, new smart plastics may yet rescue the reputation of this all-consuming 20th century material. Research into ‘cool plastics’ for cars and buildings could reduce the need for air conditioning and, thus, improve their energy efficiency. We will present recent efforts to design plastics of desired optical functions targeted for a greener world. We will discuss the potential of such systems that can offer the same flexibility, softness and light weight as commodity plastics but can control the flow of light and heat therefore assisting energy management in buildings and greenhouses in the form of heat mirrors, photovoltaic applications when used as anti-reflection coatings and semi-transparent mirrors, as well as building blocks for novel optical structures that can lead to quantum devices.