Color change with temperature change. Color-changing paint - modern technology for painting vehicles. Thermochromic paint for cars

Thermochromic paint is modern material, with which unusual coatings are created that can change color under the influence of different temperatures. Due to this effect, heat-sensitive compounds have found wide application in various industries, from the production of souvenirs to the painting of cars.

Properties of the active substance

The active ingredient in the composition is a thermochromic pigment. It is he who provides the reaction of the coating to heating or cooling, accompanied by a change in color. The amplitude of temperature fluctuations is 15–70 °С. The value at which the reaction begins is individual for each specific composition.

Thermochromic pigments are contained in the material in the form of liquid crystals enclosed in microcapsules, which allows them to be mixed with various solutions such as oil, rubber or acrylic based paints. The active substance usually makes up from 5 to 30% of the total weight of the coloring agent; this number depends on the desired result.

Types of thermal paints

Thermochromic compounds are divided into two groups:

• returnable,
• irrevocable.

The former include those coatings that give a reversible visual effect, that is, they are able to change the shade and return to their original state when the temperature returns to normal. This "focus" is repeated a large number of once.

In the second case, the paint changes color once and finally, the coating will no longer react to heat or cold.

Areas of use

Return-type thermochromic inks are used more widely than their "disposable" counterparts. These materials have gained high popularity among car owners who want to make their car original in terms of external design.

car cover

Heat-sensitive paint is a godsend for those who like to experiment and be creative in car care. Everyone can create a new interesting image for their iron horse with their own hands, because working with paint that changes color is not difficult. It can even be applied with a conventional paint brush or roller, although best option for painting a car body - this, of course, is a paint sprayer.

Thermochromic material can be not only a highlight of the decor, but also have an important practical function: if the car coating becomes White color or other light shade, then in hot weather the body can reflect Sun rays and the surface of the car will overheat less.

To create a complex visual effect, you can use the following technique: paint the car in several layers of thermal paint, using compositions with different temperature thresholds. To add "magic" will help drawings made using a stencil or applied by hand (if there are the makings of an artist). The car, for the design of which heat-sensitive paints were masterfully used, simply cannot go unnoticed in the stream of other cars!

While rejoicing at the opportunity to decorate your vehicle, you should still know that thermochromic paint also has some disadvantages:

• low light resistance: in order to protect the car body from the damaging effects of ultraviolet radiation, you will have to apply a layer of special varnish and equip the parking lot with a canopy, ( the best option- garage);
• in case of mechanical damage, a complete repainting of the machine will be required;
• difficulties in registering a car that does not have a permanent color;
• heat-sensitive paint is an expensive material.

Dishes that change color

A tea or coffee mug, on the surface of which a funny inscription or drawing appears when a hot drink gets into it, is a good memorable gift. An appetizer platter with an emerging pattern is an interesting detail in a table setting. And a variety of children's dishes that give a visual signal when porridge or milk is too hot - useful thing in the everyday life of young mothers.

Important: thermochromic paints do not contain toxic substances, and dishes painted with these materials are safe for health.

clothing

The textile industry also uses compositions that change color depending on temperature. So, a plain T-shirt worn on the body may surprise you with a fashionable print, and a stylish pattern or label will appear on jeans.

Souvenirs and decor elements

In this industry, an unusually wide scope for the use of thermochromic materials is open: Christmas decorations and garlands, other holiday paraphernalia, original lamps and candlesticks, key rings, gift stationery and more. The great thing is that a lot of things can be made and painted with your own hands, for example, paint a picture or create a panel with a “secret”.

Printed products

Business cards that come to life at the touch warm hands, advertising leaflets or magazines promoting perfume (rub the page!), children's picture books, postcards - all this is often produced using heat-sensitive compounds, since they color palette rich enough.

Generally find original application these unusual materials in everyday life, everyone can independently, showing imagination and making a little effort.

You may also be interested.

It should be noted that most owners of their own vehicles are trying to highlight their car in one way or another, arrange it in such a way as to emphasize their individuality and even to some extent find self-expression. To do this, a variety of spoilers, lights, discs are used, in a word, all the means available to the modern motorist. Including the most paints different colors and shades.

Technologies are developing day by day, constantly bringing novelties in various fields. Almost every day, unique products are created that can expand the already existing decorative effects.

Such products can be safely called the following novelties:

• A hydrochromic paint that will change the color of your car when it gets wet.
• Thermochromic paint that changes color with temperature.
• Paramagnetic paint - the color of your car will change at the touch of a button on the remote control.

Each of them has its own characteristics, due to its chemical composition, and it is worth talking about it in more detail.

Let's start in order with hydrochromic enamels.

Hydroenamel changes color when water gets on it, which is logical to assume from the name. The composition of such a paintwork material includes microgranules, which, when dry, give the paint a normal color. However, when exposed to water, the solid color turns transparent, and then under it, as if by magic, the color of the paint applied from below, under the hydro enamel, will appear.

Hydrochromic enamel does not contain toxic substances and is safe for human health and the environment.

This option for painting a car gives less scope for imagination and activity than painting using thermochromic enamels, which will be discussed below. However, some car owners, not without success, resort to this method of painting - hydroenamel, as an option, is applied to separate sections body, masking the patterns that will become visible when water hits the car.

Thermochromic paints, like any other paints, contain pigments that give them color. They can be present as liquid crystals or leuco dyes, and special microcapsules respond to temperature changes.

The reactive components that activate the change in color of the entire painted object depending on temperature dissolve in the liquid part of the paint, that is, in water or a solvent. The appearance of the paint changes dramatically upon contact with something cold or, conversely, hot.

The range of temperatures at which the paint will change its color varies. It can be set based on what task is in a particular case.

Based on this information, the thermochromic paint coating of a car is a layer of paint that reacts to the temperature that affects it. It doesn't even need to be said that this species paintwork material against the background of existing ones is a very unusual and means to stand out from the "gray mass" of cars, most of which are painted with banal enamels, and helps to do this very effectively.

In addition, when painting a car, it is not necessary to resort to only one color - patterns of thermochromic paints can be applied to the body, or different types of thermochromic paints can be painted, and thus create an absolutely unique stunning design (under the influence of different paint temperatures different kind will accept different shades and create a whole spectrum on the body).

There are several basic colors that are used in thermal paints:

• violet;
• shades of red (from scarlet to pink);
• blue, blue, dark blue;
• green;
• yellow;
• the black.

Already existing tools for applying other paints and varnishes do an excellent job of painting a car body with thermochromic paint. To do this, you can successfully use rollers, sponges, conventional brushes and sprayers.

Of course, best effect will be achieved using an airbrush, but its use necessarily requires the presence of special skills in handling it. So, having decided to “pump” your car on your own, in this particular case it is better to contact a master with the proper qualifications, unless, of course, the owner of the car himself is one.

In addition to being able to give your car personality traits in such a creative way, heat sensitive paint has a few more positive features:

1. It does not contain toxic substances, so it is safe for human (and animal) health and does not harm the environment.
2. Paint can improve the temperature balance in a car interior by darkening and light colors that will absorb and reflect the sun's rays.
3. By combining thermal paint layers with different temperature ranges, absolutely unique coloring effects can be achieved.
4. Paint provides the ability to quickly change the color of the car.

Unfortunately, in addition to the obvious advantages, heat-sensitive paints also have their drawbacks, which is inevitable for any product.

While maintaining objectivity, it is necessary to cite their negative properties:

1. Thermal inks are highly sensitive to ultraviolet light. The colorful coating of the car will not be able to last for a long time if you do not protect the body with a special varnish.
2. The second one follows from the first minus - a car painted with thermochromic paint will need to be put in a darkened garage.
3. At the moment, no methods have been developed to restore a damaged thermochromic coating, so if necessary, the car owner will simply have to repaint it, which is unlikely to please him because of the fourth minus:
4. This type of paintwork material is very expensive, and a very impressive amount will be spent on the full coloring of the vehicle.
5. Another disadvantage is the mandatory registration of a vehicle painted with such paint in the traffic police due to the lack of a stable color in the car.

However, despite all negative sides, it should be noted that thermochromic enamels for cars are currently gaining more and more popularity. This is facilitated by a satisfactory combination of quality and cost, and, of course, with a creative approach, the possibility of creating absolutely unique unusual designs for each car, which will manifest themselves differently under the influence of different temperatures.

And, nevertheless, there was one more type of coating for cars, which must be mentioned - paramagnetic car paint.

Paint that changes color with temperature

This innovation in the field of paint and varnish products was provided for use by motorists not so long ago. In short, with such a coating, the color of the car can be changed in a matter of seconds, and for this it will be enough to press a button on a special remote control.

The "father" of this paint is the world famous car brand Nissan.

The painting process consists in the fact that immediately before painting the car, paramagnetic iron oxide is applied to the body, which leads to the composition of the polymer. When a current is applied to the paramagnetic oxide particles, the distance between the polymer granules changes, resulting in a change in the reflective characteristics. As a result, the color of the car also changes. Why not a James Bond car?

Truth, important point is the effect when the engine is running. If the engine is turned off, the car will return to its original color and turn white.

Despite the fact that this can be seen as a disadvantage, motorists have shown great interest in this new product, and today you can find such a service in many car services.

Summarize

In order to paint a car, in addition to traditional, there are very creative options, With which vehicle acquire character.

Most suitable option each motorist should choose based on their needs and preferences, and, of course, financial capabilities.

by the most simple option is a hydrochromic coating - when exposed to rain, the car will look unusual and interesting.

Heat-sensitive paints will achieve an impressive effect due to the combination different formulations with different temperature ranges, and most interesting way staining, of course, is the application of a paramagnetic coating.

Each material has its pros and cons, which should also be taken into account.

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Every car owner great importance gives color to your car. There is nothing surprising. Except technical parameters and performance characteristics, extremely important appearance vehicle. Here, among other things, big role plays the paint that covers the car. Many consider the car to some extent their friend, some consider their car as a means of self-expression. So why not use color as one of the components?

Car paint that allows you to change color

Modern technologies daily offer motorists new opportunities to improve the technical parameters and performance of their cars. Car painting technologies do not stand still. For those who do not like to stand still, who like change and bold decisions, offers various ways to quickly change the appearance of your car.

Automotive paint that changes color is not a fantasy and not a distant future. Any car enthusiast can use this tool today to make their life brighter and more diverse.

The industry offers the following types of automotive enamels, which make it possible to change the color of your car:

1. Thermochromic is a paint for a car that changes its color under the influence of ambient temperature.
2. Hydrochromic - the color of the coating changes under the influence of water.
3. Paramagnetic - at the touch of a button on the remote control remote control you can completely change the color of your car.

These three types of paints give you the opportunity to change the look of your car. They have different chemical composition and are based on different principles actions. Let's take a closer look at each of these types.

Thermochromic paint for cars

Thermochromic paint is a temperature sensitive coating for your car body. When the temperature changes, the color of your car changes. This is a very effective and creative way to stand out among cars painted with conventional enamels. You can paint your car not in one color, but apply a pattern. So the appearance will be even more spectacular.

The main shades used in heat-sensitive enamels:

• blue or cyan;
• red, scarlet or pink;
• yellow;
• violet;
• the black;
• green.

The composition of thermochromic enamel includes special heat-sensitive microgranules that change color with temperature changes. Coloring pigments are present in the form of leuco dyes or liquid crystals. Upon reaching a certain temperature threshold, these elements from colorless become colored in certain tones. The temperature indicator for color change is set individually. Such a coating can be applied to the body different ways, namely:

• roller;
• brush;
• sprayer;
• sponge.

Naturally, the most best result gives application by spray, however, for this it is necessary to have certain professional skills. In their absence, it is worth contacting qualified craftsmen.

The use of heat sensitive paint products is very effective and creative in making your car stand out.

In addition to this undeniable advantage, there are also a number of other advantages:

• the ability to quickly change the tone of the vehicle body;
• improvement of thermoregulation in the cabin through the use of light and dark colors that absorb and reflect heat radiation;
• the possibility of using a combination of layers with different temperature conditions create a unique coloristic effect;
• the absence in such enamels of harmful toxic substances that adversely affect human health and pollute environment. They fit perfectly sanitary standards and requirements.

Along with the above list of advantages, thermochromic enamels also have a number of disadvantages. This is true for any kind of product. Consider for objectivity and negative sides heat sensitive coatings:

• high sensitivity to ultraviolet radiation. In order to extend the service life of such a coating, it is necessary to apply to the body;
• the need to keep the car in a darkened garage;
• high cost of materials - in order to completely paint your vehicle, you will need to spend a lot of money;
• if the coating is damaged, it will be necessary to repaint the car - the possibility of repair does not yet exist;
• the need to register a car painted in this way with the traffic police, since the car does not have a permanent color.

It should be noted that of all types of products that allow you to change the color of the body, heat-sensitive coatings are the most popular today. This is due to the most acceptable balance of price and quality of coloring. In addition, it is this option that makes it possible to create interesting compositions which behave differently under different temperature conditions.

Hydrochromic car enamel

Hydrochromic paint allows you to change the color of the car when wet. Special wet-sensitive microgranules, when dry, make this enamel an ordinary white coating. However, under the influence of water, the white paint becomes transparent, and the color applied by the bottom layer appears.

Of course, the hydrochromic version provides much less options than the heat-sensitive one. However, this type of staining is also successfully used by some motorists. In fact, there is no need to completely paint the body with a hydrochromic agent. It is enough to apply it to certain areas, hiding decorative elements that will appear when the machine gets wet. Such substances are non-toxic and do not harm human health or the environment.

Paramagnetic car paint

An unusual novelty was offered to motorists recently. Now any owner can change the color of his car in just a second, just by pressing the button on the remote control.

For this, the so-called paramagnetic paint- one of latest developments in the area of automotive coatings, proposed several years ago by the world brand Nissan.

Before, a polymer is applied to its body, which includes particles of paramagnetic iron oxide. When they are affected electricity, the distance between the granules changes. As a result, the reflective properties of the coating change, which leads to a change in the color of the car. Switching occurs using the remote control.

This effect only works when the engine is on. If it does not work, the machine returns to its "original" white version. This development aroused great interest among motorists. Still, fantasy becomes a reality! Today, many automotive services offer their services for painting cars with paramagnetic coatings.

Conclusion

If you want to somehow stand out from the crowd by giving your car an unusual creative design, you have the opportunity to paint it with enamel, which allows you to change the tone of the body. Today's technologies make this possible by offering heat-sensitive, hydro-sensitive and paramagnetic products. After studying their features and principle of operation, you can choose the most suitable option for you.

Most simple solution there will be a use of a hydrochromic option - once in the rain, your car will look different. Heat-sensitive coatings make it possible to create bright impressive ranges from compositions with different temperature sensitivity thresholds.

A video demonstrating the effect is gaining popularity on the Internet. unusual paint for hair that changes color when heated with a hairdryer. And drastically! More recently, hair dye company Pravana has released a line of "Vivids Mood Color", which can be translated as "bright mood dye". According to Allure.com, the product is not exactly hair dye. "This is a temporary remedy that changes color depending on the level of heat around you." Lissette Cruz, product development manager at Pravana, said: “What makes it unique is that it is the world's first color that reacts to heat. This happens very quickly. If you go out into the sun, the color will change. Any gust of wind can bring the hair back to its original shade again. Depending on the original color, heat may make yellow green, pink purple, platinum blue and so on. Take a look!

Provana has developed the first hair dye that changes color when heated.

"When your hair is magical."

Lissette Cruz, Pravana product development manager: “If you go out in the sun, there will be a color change. Any gust of wind can bring the hair back to its original shade again.”

It is also important to understand the limitations of this product. First, it will be available only in specialized stores. And secondly, like most hair dyes, it works best on lighter colored hair.

A new way to minimize damage from malfunctions in various designs it may be the development of improved methods for detecting damage before it becomes critical. And this is where materials that change color when damaged can come to the rescue.

Adding special nanoparticles to a transparent polymer resin results in a smart material that changes color when damaged or close to breaking. Such materials are called "materials with a changeable character" (eng. " mood ring materials ", literally, materials for a mood ring that changes color depending on a person's temperature," explained Cole Brubaker, a doctoral student in the Laboratory for Reliability Systems (LASIR) at Vanderbilt University.

The material changes color in response to mechanical impact.

Intelligent monitoring technologies are currently one of the most studied issues in civil, mechanical and aerospace engineering. These issues are mainly addressed by the development of networks of physical sensors that are attached to structures of interest. But this approach has disadvantages in the form of high cost of equipment and complex processing of the received data.
The LASIR researchers have taken a different approach and are incorporating luminescent nanoparticles into the material itself, which react to mechanical stress by changing their optical properties. This approach allows you to create new type monitoring system that is efficient and cost effective.

"Currently, there are two ways to support all infrastructure objects, from bridges to aircraft, safe,” the researchers say. “One of them is when people constantly conduct direct inspection of structures. The problem with this is that it is labor intensive and people cannot see very small cracks. Another way is to introduce complex networks of sensors into the monitored object that continuously assess the state of the structure and look for small cracks and detect them before they become too large and begin to affect the safety of the structure. The problem is that such networks are very expensive and, in the case of aircraft, add a lot of weight. So we need to somehow change the materials we use to bring out these tiny cracks."

The team's initial research showed that adding tiny concentrations of specialty nanoparticles (1 to 5 percent by weight) to an optically clear polymer matrix results in a characteristic change in the material's optical properties when subjected to a wide range of compressive and tensile loads.

A group of researchers at Vanderbilt University aren't the only ones using nanoparticles to create "smart" materials, but they have an advantage. They use a special type of nanoparticle called a white light quantum dot. These quantum dots are unique because they emit white light where other quantum dots only emit light at certain wavelengths.

These special quantum dots were accidentally discovered in 2005 at Vanderbilt University while studying quantum dots based on cadmium selenide.

White light quantum dots have unique optical properties compared to other nanoparticles because white light emission is a surface phenomenon. When such nanoparticles are placed in a material, they react to what is happening around them.

During preliminary tests, glass fibers and aluminum strips were coated with a polymer coating containing white light quantum dots and subjected to external loads of varying intensity. They found that the intensity of the spectrum of radiation emitted by quantum dots decreases as the load increases.

The graph shows that the white light spectrum of quantum dots in epoxy resin on aluminum strips decreases with increasing tensile load on the strip.

(LASIR Lab / Vanderbilt)

"There is still a lot of uncertainty about the mechanism of the phenomenon, but we have shown that adding these quantum dots to ultrathin polymer coatings on the metal surfaces can provide early warning when the base metal suffers any damage," the researchers said.

Researchers believe that quantum dots emit light in a wide spectrum, because more than 80 percent of the atoms lie on the surface. They also know that the bond between surface atoms and their surrounding molecules plays a crucial role.

Thus, the researchers confirmed that the material can act as a new kind of strain gauge that constantly registers the mechanical impact on it.

The researchers also faced a number of difficulties. For example, in a number of tests, epoxy cylinders deformed into a barrel shape when compressed, and the emission spectrum actually increased rather than decreased. The researchers suggest that this happened because the deformation squeezed the nanoparticles closer together and their concentration in the region of deformation increased.

Besides that, there is one more problem that they will have to solve in order to make the damage detection system workable. Quantum dots suffer from light exposure. That is, when they are exposed to light, they gradually decrease their glow over time. As a result, such material must be protected from external light.

"There are many problems that need to be solved before we can create a smart material that is ready for real-world applications, but the trend is positive," the researchers say.