High structural stability of colored carbon fiber cloths modified by FeOOH

Coloring carbon fiber has always been a challenge due to its inherent high crystallinity and insufficient affinity for chemical dyes. Herein, multicolored carbon fiber cloths were simply fabricated using an eco-friendly one-step hydrothermal method. The bright colors of the carbon fiber cloth were easily controlled by adjusting the hydrothermal temperature to change the size of FeOOH particle grown on the surface of carbon fiber. Impressively, the cloths have excellent structural stability and can withstand laundering under acidic and basic conditions, light irradiation, plasma etching and mechanical rubbing. In addition, considering such impressive characteristics as well as reflection spectra in the visible and near-infrared regions, the above colored carbon fibers were used as the new candidate of photothermal deicing, demonstrating a superior temperature increasement up to ~16 °C with respect to the control sample.