• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.65 no.2
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• pp.125-132
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• 2021

An electrochromic nickel oxide thin film was fabricated on a flexible PET/ITO substrate using a nanocrystallite- dispersed coating sol and bar coater. Nanocrystalline NiOx of 3-4 nm crystallite size was first synthesized by base precipitation and thermal conversion. This NiOx nanocrystallite powder was mechanically dispersed in an alcoholic solvent mixed with a silane binder to prepare a coating sol for thin film. This sol method is different from the normal sol-gel method in that it does not require the conversion of precursor by heat treatment. Therefore, this method provides a very facile method to prepare NiOx thin films on any kind of substrate and it can be easily applied to mass production. The electrochromic performance of this NiOx thin film on PET/ITO electrode with a thickness of about 400 nm was investigated in a nonaqueous LiClO4 electrolyte solution by cyclic voltammetric and repeated chronoamperometric measurements in conjunction with spectrophotometry. The visible light modulation of 44% and the colorization efficiency of 41 ㎠/C at 550 nm were obtained at the step potentials of -0.8/+1.2 V vs Ag and a duration of 30 s.