photochromic pigment change color by sunlight
Applications of Photochromic Pigments：
The exclusive flexibility persisted by the photochromic powder makes it suitable to be applied to a variety of materials like glass, paper, wood, ceramics, metals, plastics, board and fabric. A wide range of applications is there for these products which include coatings, plastic injection moulding and printing. As an indicator of temperature, the colour is developed through the irradiation of ink with UV rays. After activation, depending upon the time, the photochromic colors come to a colourless state. The photochromatic pigment persists a photochromatic dye which is microencapsulated. A synthetic resin surrounds the dye to provide excess stability and security from other chemicals and additives.
Sunglasses & Lenses: Photochromic pigment is used in developing modern photochromic lenses made from polycarbonate. A special oven is used in which blank lenses are cautiously taken up a certain temperature. In this process, the layer absorbs the photochromic pigment powder. After this, the grounding process of lens takes place, keeping the requirements of optician’s prescriptions. When UV light appears on the lens, the shape of molecule or particles change their place on the surface layer of the lens. The appearance of the lens darkens as the natural light becomes brighter.
Packaging: The additives are applied during the process of manufacturing plastics and coating. These photochromic materials are used for smart labels, indicators, packaging materials and displays during the packaging process. Companies have found the application of photochromic colours over the paper, pressure-sensitive matters, film in food packaging.
Other than this, a photochromic ink is been developed by Printpack which is a packaging converter. This ink is hidden on the packaging graphics of eatables like cheese, beverages, dairy and other snacks. This ink is visible when UV rays are exposed in front of it.
Colour Changing Nail Lacquer: Recently nail varnish are available in the market which changes its shades as per the intensity of UV radiations exposed on it. The photochromic colour technology is been implied on it.
Textile: Photochromic pigments can be implied in a wide range of textile products. They can be the daily wear clothing or something out of the box like medical textile, sports textile, geotextile and protective textile.
Other Uses: Usually, novelty items are created using photochromic pigments like cosmetics, toys and some more types of industrial using. Apart from that, it also has applications in high tech supramolecular chemistry. This has allowed the molecule to be adaptable for data processing as in 3D data storage.
