ACS Nano: thanks to TiO2, carbon fiber finally has color photos

Carbon fiber has developed into one of the most important chemical materials and has been widely used in many fields However, the current carbon fiber products are too single color, basically black or dark gray If you ask what is the dream of carbon fiber? Its dream must be to have a color photo Recently, Chinese scientists have helped carbon fiber realize this dream What is carbon fiber? Carbon fiber is a kind of fiber material with chemical inertia and semiconductor properties It has light weight, high strength, high modulus of elasticity, high temperature resistance, acid resistance, strong conductivity, long-term stress without latent change and fatigue resistance, strong dimensional stability, high thermal conductivity, small friction coefficient, lubricity and other excellent properties Carbon fiber is one of the most potential new materials in the 21st century, widely used in aerospace, automobile, chemical industry, infrastructure, military, sports, energy, textile and other fields On the micro level, the surface of carbon fiber is non-polar and highly crystallized disordered graphite structure, showing high chemical inertness, low surface energy and smooth surface The combination of carbon fiber and matrix is weak, and the active surface area of carbon fiber is small, the number of active carbon atoms on the edge is small, and the interface strength is decreased, which affects the full play of the excellent properties of the composite In addition, the chemical bonding between carbon fiber and dye molecules is relatively weak, which makes dyeing very difficult As a result, the current carbon fiber products are too single in color, basically black or dark gray What does the latest research paper on carbon fiber products (source: Vision China) say? Recently, the scientific research team led by Professor Xu Weilin of Wuhan Textile University and Professor Wang Shimin of Hubei University has found a simple and efficient method of carbon fiber fabric coloring, which uses structural coloring instead of chemical dyeing to achieve color adjustment of carbon fiber fabric, and enhances the washing resistance of carbon fiber fabric In this study, we mainly use the principle of structural coloring, and use the atomic layer deposition (ALD) technology to construct amorphous TiO2 films with different scales on the surface of carbon fiber By controlling the factors such as temperature, pressure and time that affect the amorphous TiO2 films, we can prepare colorful carbon fiber and its fabric with bright color The structure color of nature inspires the structure color of scientific research, which comes from periodic ordered nanostructures and widely exists in nature Structural color is the color produced by the reflection, diffraction, interference and other physical effects of the existence of the structure of the object itself Structural color is a kind of color that can be produced without dye or pigment Compared with dyestuff or pigment, structural color has the advantages of high color saturation, unchangeable structure and environmental protection It opens up a new way for the ecological coloring of carbon fiber The research results of structural color on fish scale (source: Chemistry World) surprised us The results showed that the defects and oxygen-containing functional groups (such as - oh and - COOH) on the surface of carbon fiber can effectively start the growth of TiO2 film The thickness of TiO2 film can be precisely adjusted by the number of ALD cycles, and then various other colors can be obtained The thickness of TiO2 film affects the color of carbon fiber (source: ACS Nano) In addition, the color carbon fiber developed by the team can be woven into fabrics with similar mechanical properties to conventional carbon fiber fabrics Even if they are washed 50 times, they will not fade and remain bright This research result points out the direction for the realization of ecological coloring of carbon fiber and its fabrics, and provides a more fashionable color choice for high-tech fabrics At the same time, this method can be applied to the future optical or color display technology Paper link: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsnano.7b05139