It is desirable to fabricate colorful coatings that have nonfading properties and are environmentally friendly. In this study, a novel approach for creating structural color coatings from monodisperse silica particles is presented. The structural color coating films, formed from an array of silica particles with a small amount of black additive, are easily prepared by a simple electrophoretic deposition (EPD) technique. The arrangement of the particle array is controlled by varying the applied voltage and deposition time. The iridescence, that is, the angular dependence, of the structural color dramatically changes with the arrangement of the particle array. A variety of colored coatings can be produced by changing the size of the particles. Structural color coatings on materials with curved surfaces and complicated shapes are also achieved by the EPD method.
In recent years, colloidal arrays of submicrometer-sized monodisperse particles used as structurally colored coatings have drawn great attention due to their non-bleaching properties and low impact on human health and the environment. In this paper, structurally colored coating films were fabricated using monodisperse SiO 2 particles via the cathodic electrophoretic deposition (EPD) technique. The addition of a strong polycation, poly(diallyldimethylammonium chloride) (PDDA), enables the cathodic EPD of SiO 2 particles and carbon black (CB) additives. Optimizing the quantities of PDDA and CB results in the appearance of vivid structural color from the coating films. The arrangement of the particle array is controllable by varying the pH of the water added to the coating sols for EPD. Structurally colored coating films with and without iridescence, i.e., angular dependence, can be fabricated on demand by a simple operation of the EPD process. In addition, the coating film prepared by cathodic EPD displayed high abrasion resistance because PDDA acts not only as a charge control agent but also as a binder.
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