I-Corps: A Non-Toxic Electrodeposition Process for Structural Color

I-Corps：一种用于结构颜色的无毒电镀工艺

• 批准号: 1940676
• 负责人: L. Jay Guo
• 金额: $ 5万
• 依托单位: Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-08-15 至 2020-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1940676&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Corps; Non; Toxic; Electrodeposition; Process

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project will be the development of a novel process to generate environmentally friendly, low-cost and robust structural color paints to address the increasing concerns over emission of toxic elements into the environment by the spray-painting of pigment-based paints, e.g. those used in automobile industry. It also provides a cost-effective solution for making structural colors without using expensive vacuum equipment. We propose a new process to immerse 3D shaped parts directly into specially prepared non-toxic chemical solutions to electrochemically deposit multilayered structural colors. The advantage of this proposed process is twofold: (1) it can potentially reduce the overall coating time by 20-30% (2) it can reduce carbon emissions and waste generation from the spray-painting process by 50%. In addition, structural colors can be designed to produce optical resonances in any wavelength, a property that makes it highly compatible with LiDAR systems. The coming mobility and autonomous driving era have opened a vast market for specially prepared reflective coatings that are specifically compatible with LiDAR systems, which presents an exciting opportunity for the optically designed structural colors. Lastly, because the design is flexible with the type of materials used to generate bright and vibrant colors, one can select materials that are bio-compatible and safe to wear on skin, which can open future applications for our technology in the cosmetics industry. This I-Corps project involves the use of electrodeposition to generate metal-dielectric-metal multilayered structural color paints and has several clear advantages over traditional deposition or assembly methods for preparing colored films. Unlike pigment-based colors, structural colors generate color using the interference effect of light. Different colors of high brightness are achieved by simply tuning the thickness of the electrodeposited middle cavity layer. Structural colors are an environmentally friendly alternative to pigments and generate brighter and more efficient colors compared to pigments. However, their extensive uses at low cost are still hindered due to the complicated fabrication processes and the required expensive vacuum systems for material deposition. To address this issue, our innovation introduces an inexpensive and non-toxic bench-top electrodeposition method for the fabrication of thin film structural colors of optical quality that is entirely performed at ambient conditions without caustic reagents and without the use of any expensive ancillary equipment. Our process is compatible with highly non-planar substrates of arbitrary shape, size and roughness, which could be ideal for the coating of automobile body and many shaped interior parts.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该I-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力将是开发一种新型过程，以产生环保，低成本和健壮的结构颜色涂料，以解决对基于色素的油漆喷涂的有毒元素将有毒元素排放到环境中的越来越多的关注点，例如那些用于汽车行业。它还提供了一种具有成本效益的解决方案，用于制作结构颜色，而无需使用昂贵的真空设备。我们提出了一个新的过程，将3D零件直接浸入特殊制备的非毒性化学溶液中，以电化学沉积多层结构颜色。该提出的过程的优点是双重的：（1）它可能将整个涂料时间降低20-30％（2）可以将喷涂过程中的碳排放量和废物产生减少50％。此外，结构颜色可以设计为在任何波长中产生光学共振，该波长使其与LiDAR系统高度兼容。即将到来的移动性和自主驱动时代为特殊准备的反射涂料开辟了一个广阔的市场，这些涂料与LiDar Systems特别兼容，这为光学设计的结构颜色提供了令人兴奋的机会。最后，由于设计具有用于生成鲜艳颜色的材料类型的灵活性，因此可以选择具有生物兼容且安全穿着皮肤的材料，这可以为我们在化妆品行业的技术开放未来的应用。这个I-Corps项目涉及使用电沉积来生成金属 - 丝线 - 金属多层结构颜色涂料，并且比传统沉积或组装方法具有多个明确的优势，以制备彩色膜。与基于色素的颜色不同，结构颜色使用光的干扰效果产生颜色。通过简单地调整电沉积中间空腔层的厚度，可以实现不同的高亮度。与颜料相比，结构颜色是颜料上环保的替代品，并产生更明亮，更有效的颜色。但是，由于复杂的制造过程以及所需的昂贵的真空系统以进行材料沉积，因此它们以低成本的广泛用途仍然受到阻碍。为了解决这个问题，我们的创新引入了一种廉价且无毒的基准电沉积方法，用于制造薄膜的光学质量结构颜色，该结构质量完全在环境条件下完全执行，而无需使用任何昂贵的辅助设备。我们的过程与任意形状，尺寸和粗糙度的高度非平面基板兼容，这对于汽车体的涂层和许多形状的内部零件都可能是理想的。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是值得通过基金会的知识分子和更广泛影响的评估审查审查标准来通过评估来获得支持的。