USA Pavilion to Introduce Largest SmartGlass Roof at Next World's Fair

MILAN, ITALY--(Marketwired - March 04, 2015) - Research Frontiers' patented SPD-SmartGlass technology has been selected as the exclusive smart glass for the USA Pavilion at this year's World's Fair, Expo Milano 2015, which is expected to attract 20-30 million people from May through October. Friends of the USA Pavilion Milano 2015, the private sector partner working with the U.S. Department of State to organize the U.S. presence at Expo Milano in Italy, today announced its partnership with Research Frontiers Inc. (NASDAQ: REFR) at the site of the USA Pavilion in Milan. Among those in attendance at the announcement ceremony were Charlie Faas, CEO of Friends of the USA Pavilion Milano 2015, Joseph M. Harary, CEO of Research Frontiers Inc., the company that invented and licenses SPD-SmartGlass technology for use in the automotive, aircraft, marine, museum and architectural industries, and Alberto Bertolini, CEO of Isoclima, which made the SPD-SmartGlass CromaLite panels for the USA Pavilion roof.

The USA Pavilion will have 312 large panels of SPD-SmartGlass manufactured under license from Research Frontiers by Isoclima, a leading high-end world glass manufacturer based in Este, Italy. Each panel measures approximately 1 meter by 3 meters, making the total surface area in the roof more than 10,000 square feet.

A video of the SPD-SmartGlass CromaLite roof panels operating at the USA Pavilion worksite is available.

"This is the largest known installation of smart glass in the world for a roof application," said Joseph M. Harary, president and CEO of Research Frontiers. "The USA Pavilion's magnificent views from the rooftop terrace, and the unparalleled ability to protect occupants from the heat of the Milan summer, provide a perfect setting for this impressive and elegant architectural use of our SPD-SmartGlass."

According to the current designs for the USA Pavilion by leading international architect James Biber, each panel will switch in seconds from dark to clear, or any desired tint in between, in response to an automated control system. USA Pavilion visitors will be able to instantly control individual panels in the roof from a touchscreen tablet.

"We love SPD-SmartGlass' ability to instantly switch from clear to opaque in response to environmental conditions. We're using more than 10,000 square feet on the rooftop terrace to warm or cool visitors with a minimum amount of energy (the equivalent of only six 100 watt light bulbs to fully clear the roof panels and no power to keep them tinted). We're also using SPD-SmartGlass to create the world's largest installation of its kind: treating the glass panels as an array of very large pixels and programming images, patterns, words and reactive motion onto what would otherwise have been a simple glass canopy," said Biber, whose Manhattan-based architectural firm won the design competition for the USA Pavilion.