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Toray Industries, Inc., announced that it has developed a high heat-insulating solar control film for advanced mobility applications. The film draws on the company’s innovative nano-multilayer technology to deliver a transparency that is comparable to that of glass. According to company, it also offers world-class thermal insulation from the sun’s infrared rays.
In deploying this film on electric vehicles and other advanced mobility applications, Toray demonstrated that the film can cut air-conditioning power consumption. The company additionally found that the film can extend cruising ranges and improve cabin comfort through excellent thermal insulation. It also showed that the film supports 5G communications, whose high radio wave transmittance is essential for autonomous driving.
Global warming has made it vital to conserve energy and cut carbon dioxide emissions. The spread of electric and fuel cell vehicles has accelerated accordingly. This has increased the need for better thermal insulation to enhance cruising ranges and ride comfort.
Toray’s PICASUS™ is a nano-multilayer film featuring several hundred to one thousand layers with nanoscale thicknesses polymer layers. Toray enhanced this technology to control the thickness of each layer at the nanometer level. It thereby innovated a high heat-insulating nano-multilayer film offering an outstanding transparency and insulating performance that is hard to attain with conventional technologies.
Toray applied this film to the windshield of an electric vehicle. It can cut air-conditioner power consumption during summer driving by around 30%, extending the cruising range by about 6%. The company additionally confirmed that the film boosts passenger comfort by reducing body temperatures in summer by 2°C from the levels recorded with regular heat-insulating windows.
It is important to improve radio wave transmittance to support the 5G mobile network, as electric vehicles employ a range of communication devices to enable automated driving and increase safety.
While the metallic sputter glass that some automobiles incorporate offers superb heat insulation, it impedes radio wave transmission. As the company states, Toray’s film delivers both outstanding insulation and transmittance, as it is metal-free.
Toray is testing film for automotive windshields and sunroofs and conducting full-fledged customer assessments with a view to deploying the film commercially on vehicles. As well as improving cruising ranges and comfort, Toray’s film technology should contribute to carbon neutrality in advanced mobility through its high radio wave transmittance and help expand connected and automated driving technologies.
Toray will keep leveraging core technologies in organic chemistry, polymer chemistry, biotechnology, and nanotechnology to undertake R&D and conceive innovative materials that drive fundamental social change. In so doing, it will endeavor to materialize its corporate philosophy contributing to society by creating new value through innovative ideas, technologies, and products.
