Performance Characteristics in Textile Application of Photochromic Dye Capsules

Photochromic dyes which change their color with UV light, are water insoluble and sensitive to the environmental conditions. In order to be able to use these dyes in textile industry, the dyes are encapsulated with a polymer, and then the encapsulated photochromic dyes are applied onto the textile materials. The encapsulated photochromic dyes can show different properties according to the photochromic dye and polymer type, capsule size and the encapsulation method applied. In this study, the performance characteristics of different commercial photochromic dye capsules were investigated after the application onto cotton fabrics by pad-cure process. It was observed that the fabrics still provide UV protection at 50 + UPF level even after 10 washing cycles. The photochromic fabrics lost their color and UV protective properties at most 16% and 4%, respectively after 20 UV on-off cycles.