Microfluidic system cuts energy costs for buildings

Developed by a team at University of Toronto Engineering, the platform was inspired by the dynamic colour-changing skin of organisms such as squid. Compared with existing technologies, it offers much greater control while keeping costs low due to its use of off-the-shelf components.

“Buildings use a ton of energy to heat, cool and illuminate the spaces inside them,” said Raphael Kay, lead author on a new paper published in PNAS. “If we can strategically control the amount, type and direction of solar energy that enters our buildings, we can massively reduce the amount of work that we ask heaters, coolers and lights to do.”

So-called ‘smart’ building technologies including automatic blinds or electrochromic windows can be used to control the amount of sunlight that enters the room, but Kay said these systems are limited because they do not discriminate between different wavelengths of light, nor control how that light is distributed spatially.