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Syllabus content
Syllabus content
What you need to know: develop an awareness and understanding of ‘smart’ and modern materials, including: thermochromic materials; polymorph; shape memory alloy (SMA); shape memory polymer (SMP)
Smart pigment
Smart pigment
Pigment is what gives a material its colour, it’s in nature and even in our skin; it is what makes something a particular colour or hue.
By replacing traditional pigments with smart pigments we can affect the colour of a materials by subjecting them to heat or light.
Smart pigments have a variety of practical uses and can be incorporated into fabrics and polymers in the same way that you might mix in a paint or dye to colour a material while it is being formed.
Phosphorescent pigment
Phosphorescent pigment
Phosphorescent materials have the unique ability to absorb light and then use that light to provide low level illumination in dark or low light conditions. The pigment can be used in paint or polymers, and products using this pigment are commonly referred to as a ‘glow in the dark’.
Photochromic pigment
Photochromic pigment
‘Photo’ relates to light and ‘chroma’ to colour. Therefore Photochromic pigments change colour when exposed to sunlight. Common examples are paints and fabrics designed to change from white or clear to coloured when exposed to sunlight.
Thermochromic pigment
Thermochromic pigment
‘Thermo’ relates to heat and ‘chroma’ to colour. Therefore Thermochromic pigments change colour when exposed to heat. Common examples are baby spoons, kettles and thermometers.
Shape memory alloys (SMA's)
Shape memory alloys (SMA's)
SMA’s are alloys that have a material memory. In other words they remember their original shape. Some have an elastic memory so when deformed, will bounce back into shape like the flexible spectacle frames. Others will remember their shape when heated and return to their ‘shaped’ position when they cool down. Perhaps the most common is Nitinol (Nickel Titanium) used for glasses and dental braces.
**Shape memory polymers
**Shape memory polymers
Shape-Memory Polymers (SMPs) are considered a kind of smart material able to modify size, shapes, stiffness or strain in response to different external (heat, electric and magnetic field, water or light) stimuli including physiological ones such as pH, body temperature and ion concentration
Two frequently used SMPs are polylactic acid (PLA) and thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU), owing to their excellent shape memory properties, biodegradability, and biocompatibility.
Prep 12
Prep 12
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