Development of reversibly color changing textile materials by applying some thermochromic microcapsules containing different color developers

Abstract

In the study, the development of cotton and wool fabrics that exhibit reversible color change and heat regulation properties was aimed. For this purpose, poly(methyl methacrylate-co-glycidyl methacrylate)/thermochromic composite 1 (PMMA/GMA/TC1) and poly(methyl methacrylate-co-glycidyl methacrylate)/thermochromic composite 2 (PMMA/GMA/TC2) microcapsules which had both of color change and heat storage properties were applied to fabrics by bath exhaustion method. Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) measurement results showed that all of the fabrics could store considerable latent heat energy, as the highest melting enthalpy was obtained for Cotton 1 and Wool 1 fabrics treated with PMMA/GMA/TC1 microcapsules. The Cotton 1 and Wool 1 fabric stored the latent heat of 76.1 J/g and 89.2 J/g, respectively. According to Thermal History measurement results, microcapsule applied fabrics exhibited cooling effect resulting from the released latent heat by 1-tetradecanol which was used as the solvent component of TCs. The visual photographs and color analysis results proved that the fabrics with thermochromic property showed reversible color change with temperature variations exceeding melting.