Research on the behaviors of extending thermochromic colors for a new thermochromic microcapsule

For the purpose of extending the color-change range of thermochromic materials, the new thermochromic microcapsules (TCMs) were designed by combining thermochromic materials with optimized dispersive-cationic dyes. Three types of TCMs, which displayed three primary colors of red, yellow and blue when exposed to high temperature, were prepared separately. By color matching with three-primary colors, the matched TCMs could present remarkable thermochromic properties. Especially, with the variety of ambient temperature, the colors of the TCMs could change reversibly between different tones and exhibit more gorgeous colors than common thermochromic materials, which made it possible to solve the problem of the narrow color-change range for common thermochromic material. In this paper, the mechanism of expanding thermochromic colors, thermochromic performances, color matching effects and thermal stabilities of the TCMs and the modified fabrics were investigated. The TCMs were of practical significances for developing thermochromic intelligent textiles.