Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Technology => Topic started by: ScientificSorcerer on 10/11/2014 17:04:02
-
Electro-chromic clothing
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fw3.unisa.edu.au%2Fmawsoninstitute%2Fimages%2Felectrochromicmaterials.jpg&hash=880a1ec735550b509a35f00e837d8664)
I Am trying to make a hoodie which has electro-chromic properties. It's purpose is to make simple neon sign type animations on the hoodie's surface with electro-chromic ink. The Idea is Similar
electro-luminescent clothing but with less power requirements and without the glow.
I want the hoodie to look normal, without any obvious electronics sticking out. as far as I know electrochromics are incredibly energy efficient and use only about 1.5 volts.
this video should give you some more information about electrochromics and may help you guys understand what I want to do.
Now that you know a little about what I plan to do, I was wondering exactly how I was going to pull this off. From what I can tell, the way the electro chromic effect usually works is by sandwiching an electro-chromic chemical film between 2 transparent electrodes then applying a voltage.
But I was thinking of an alternative technique which may or may not work, from what I can see the electro-chromic effect occurs when the chromic chemical becomes Ionized. The reason why sandwiching it between electrodes causes it to change colors is because that arrangement ionizes the chemical like a capacitor.
What if the the hoodie was made from a good triboelectric staticy material like polyester then the material became statically charged, would the electrochromic material activate in the presence of a common static electric field then deactivate by a static discharge?
Could I simply put some electrochromic ink on the hoodie then rub my socks on a carpet to make it appear then touch a door nob to get it to disappear?
Basically the Idea is to connect the hoodie to a static electricity generator, would this work or not?
I wonder if it's possible to do this in such a way that you don't constantly get static shocks, But I think that you could perhaps make the static field generator so weak that you would barely feel any static discharge when you touched things yet the electric field would still be strong enough on the surface of the hoodie to activate the sensitive electro-chromic ink. what do you think of this Idea?
-
As I understand it, there are two classes of electrochromic materials: one uses an electric field to change the orientation or conformation of molecules to modulate the magnitude of interaction with light (how colored it appears); the other involves actual electrochemical oxidation or reduction of the compound from a colorless substance to a colored one (or from one color to another). In the first case, I think your approach might work theortically, but it sounds difficult to implement. In the second case, one must consider voltage and current. One needs to exceed a certain voltage for the reaction to occur, but one also requires enough electrons to be injected into the material (or removed from the material) for the color to manifest. Rubbing your socks on the carpet generates very high voltages, but can't produce a significant amount of current.
-
I doubt that simply throwing an ink on an existing fabric will do what you want. It seems that you have to have layers of chemicals (so maybe applying more than one chemical, allowing each to solidify before the next, is a theoretically possible approach). As for power, if you are trying to make a changeable display that can show various different messages, there has to be a way of directing the power to the correct spots. This sounds highly difficult to apply to an existing fabric by printing with layers of chemicals. It may be possible, but by designing the entire fabric specifically for this purpose, using specially designed fibers that can link into a control unit somehow, which would be another challenge.
-
In short, your fabric will basically be equivalent to a circuit board, and just as complex and probably difficult to manufacture in a form that could be worn.