Abstract
The existing road surface marking with poor visibility at night results in traffic safety hazards in insufficient lighting roads. This study aims to prepare the dedicated aluminate-based persistent phosphors considering the integrated pavement environment, as the first step to achieve the durable luminescent road surface marking. SrAl2O4: Eu2+, Dy3+ persistent phosphors coated with silica–polymer hybrid shell were prepared by chemical precipitation and sol-gel method to improve moisture resistance and organic compatibility. The optimum silane coupling agent type and dosage, the surfactant dosage, the optimum sodium silicate dosage, and the coating reaction time in silica shell and polymer shell coating were studied based on the moisture resistance test. The silica–polymer hybrid shell coating balances the organic compatibility and thermal stability as compared to the silica or polymer shell coating in the oil absorption test and thermogravimetric analysis. Ex-Em Spectra, XRD, and SEM method were used to characterize the persistent phosphors, indicating the preparation does not destroy the persistent phosphors. The outstanding durable properties of SrAl2O4: Eu2+, Dy3+ persistent phosphors coated with silica–polymer hybrid shell as shown in this research is crucial for its potential application in waterborne luminescent coatings of road surface marking.
Highlights
The road surface marking is an important transportation infrastructure to convey various official information, especially to guide traffic on the channelized traffic roads [1,2,3]
The road surface marking produced by above method has poor visibility at night, resulting in traffic safety hazards in insufficient lighting roads
The energy storing luminescent materials are classified into sulfides, aluminates and aluminum silicon salts
Summary
The road surface marking is an important transportation infrastructure to convey various official information, especially to guide traffic on the channelized traffic roads [1,2,3]. Hot melt paint, heating solvent paint, and water-based paint are the four mainstream types of road surface marking paints. Due to the slow construction speed and serious environment pollution, room temperature solvent paint and hot melt paint have been gradually phased out [4,5]. The road surface marking produced by above method has poor visibility at night, resulting in traffic safety hazards in insufficient lighting roads. Energy-storing luminescent materials are alternative road coatings to provide enhanced visibility by self-illuminating. They convert absorbed external energy into fluorescence when excited, relying on their own lattice defects to generate energy-level transitions. The energy storing luminescent materials are classified into sulfides, aluminates and aluminum silicon salts. The SrAl2 O4 : Eu2+ , Dy3+ crystalizes in a monoclinic system and consists of rings formed by six-corner-sharing oxide aluminate tetrahedra, of which two Materials 2020, 13, 426; doi:10.3390/ma13020426 www.mdpi.com/journal/materials
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