Currently, functional materials are attracting considerable attention in the effort to solve some tough challenges the world is faced with. Thermochromic (TC) materials have the potential to make buildings more energy efficient because of their ability to change color (i.e black to white) at specific temperatures. Using this property, TC materials can reflect solar radiation in the summer, to keep a building cool during daytime hours, and absorb solar radiation in the winter to keep the building warm when their color is dark. Very often, to increase their durability, thermochromic materials are encapsulated. In this work, a new process has been developed to encapsulate low temperature TC materials with silicon dioxide. The encapsulated TC material has been characterized by several methods to determine its performance, such as SEM and TEM to determine the SiO2 shell structural properties, TGA and DSC to test its thermal properties. The as developed SiO2 encapsulated thermochromic materials demonstrated the color transition at around 31oC.

Thesis is focused on plasma modification of materials. The work has the character of a search of available literature, especially the papers presented in impacted journals. The aim is to provide a broader overview of the subject. The first section describes the most commonly modified powdered materials. The second part is focused on the plasma modification, the reasons for its use, capabilities and benefits respectively and disadvantages of these processes. The following sections are devoted to plasma discharges, plasma reactors, aspects of plasma modification and companies engaged in production, or modification of powders. Each chapter is intended to provide an overview of the modified powder materials, processes within the plasma discharges, construction and use of plasma reactors, plasma modification of aspects and the market situation in the context of powdered materials and companies dealing with the plasma modification.