Constructing a New Biomass-Based Bistatic Window for Solar Regulation.

Smart windows effectively respond to the ever-changing climatic conditions, offering a smart solution for low-carbon buildings. However, current smart windows derived from chromic materials often have inferior solar modulation ability, or showcase high haze that obstructs outdoor views. Here, instead of developing new chromic materials, a new bistatic window is proposed for ultra-high solar modulation and luminous transmission. The new developed window can reduce the indoor surface temperature for ≈11 °C, and reduce the building space cooling and heating energy consumption by 30% to 40%, providing significant energy-related advances over traditional smart windows. In detail, the bistatic window exhibits excellent solar modulation ability (ΔTsol = 61%), high visible transmittance in both bleached (Tlum,bleached = 91%) and colored (Tlum,colored = 56%) states, low haze (< 1%), rapid switching response (switching time < 1 min), high color rendering index (CRI > 80), and long-cyclic stability after 1000 cycles. With the advantages of facile fabrication and scalability, it is foreseen the developed bistatic window holds promising prospect for the next-generation low-carbon buildings, paving a new way for future advancements in the fields of smart windows.

Evolutionary Games of Low-Carbon Behaviors of Construction Stakeholders under Carbon Taxes.

The development of low-carbon buildings (LCBs) in China has not reached its expected status, although the Chinese government has formulated many relevant regulations. The real estate developers and consumers are essential participants in the development of LCBs. This paper explores whether the government's implementation of the carbon tax will change their choices of LCBs. Evolutionary game models between developers and consumers are established under static and dynamic carbon taxes. Their evolutionarily stable strategies (ESS) are deduced in different situations. According to the real scenarios in China, numerical simulations are further conducted to show that carbon tax influences the low-carbon behaviors of stakeholders in the construction industry. Under a static carbon tax, the two players cannot reach an equilibrium state, while the game system is stable under a dynamic tax. The probability of the developers constructing LCBs is positively related to the carbon tax, while its degree is gradually weakened as the tax rate increases. Therefore, an appropriate tax should be set to promote the development of LCBs effectively. Finally, policy implications are put forwarded to guide the participants' low-carbon behaviors and reduce the carbon emissions in the Chinese construction industry.