Electrons-Donating Derived Dual-Resistant Crust of VO Nano-Particles via Ascorbic Acid Treatment for Highly Stable Smart Windows Applications.

Traditional vanadium dioxide (VO) material faced severe challenges of low stability in acid, humid, and oxygenic environments, which hinder its real applications. Here, we report a facile improving process which can enhanced the stability of VO nanocrystals in the environments above. Ascorbic acid (AA), as an important antioxidant for organism in medicine and biology, was ingeniously used for enhancing the antioxidation abilities of inorganic material. At the same time, the AA could generate the hydrogen doping occurred on the surface of VO nanocrystals, which enhanced their Antiacid abilities simultaneously. The AA treated VO nanocrystals retain stable in HSO and HO solution and exhibit high durability in hyperthermal (60 °C) and humid (90%) environment. Characterizations and first-principles theoretical calculations confirmed that the coordination of ascorbic acid molecules on VO nanocrystals induced charge-carrier density reorganization and protons transferring electrostatically. Then the formed HVO provides an enhancing formation energy for oxygen vacancy and protects the particles from corrosion. This work is beneficial to the VO nanoparticles coated and decorated processes and exhibit good potential for practical application of VO-based smart windows.