An investigation of the activation of multi-colour changing photochromic textiles

Recent development in chemistry, fibres and electronic technology provides new material directions for designers to develop dynamic textiles that can change colour and pattern as a response to external environmental stimuli. Such dynamic textiles create many opportunities including novel surface decorations, development of flexible displays that can express emotions or signals and textiles for safety and camouflage. The photochromic material can be used to design textiles embedded with reversible multicolour changing effects that can be experienced in daylight conditions. The activation of the colour changing effect of photochromic textiles is mainly influenced by the ultraviolet radiation that has a wavelength below 400 nm. One of the limitations of using photochromic colourants for the development of multi-colour changing textiles is the inability to control the activation of individual colours that have been applied to the textile surface. As such, the resulting visual experience has the tendency to become predictable for observers, thus, restrict the creative product design possibilities. The research conducted in this paper aimed to address this by exploring the possibility of handling different activation methods to control the kinetic behaviour of photochromic textiles. Three different activation methods including; sunlight, artificial UV lights and SMD UV LEDs were examined, and the possibilities to use each of these activation methods for the excitation of controllable multi-colour changing photochromic effects was highlighted. The paper concludes with a discussion on the creative design possibilities that can be exploited with such controllable multi-colour changing photochromic textiles, and appropriate visuals have been referred to justify the finding