热致变色聚合物研究进展

热致变色聚合物具有成本低、易制备、易加工、易修饰、稳定性好等优势,已被应用到温度传感、智能窗、变色涂料、显示器、智能纺织品、防伪等多个领域.根据热致变色机理,总结了共轭聚合物、超分子聚合物、凝胶、光子晶体和液晶聚合物的最新研究进展,并对其变色机理及应用进行了概述及分类归纳.最后,提出了目前热致变色聚合物在应用中还存在的问题,并对未来该领域的研究方向作了展望.

Research Progress of Thermochromic Polymers

As stimulus-responsive materials, thermochromic ones have been applied to different fields, such as temperature sensors, smart windows, color-changing paints, displays, smart textiles and anti-counterfeiting, which have attracted wide attentions. Among them, inorganic thermochromic materials usually contain heavy metallic species (ions/atoms), which are commonly toxic and hence unfriendly to the environment; while organic small molecule thermochromic materials are easily bleached due to unstable structure in practice use. In contrast, polymer thermochromic materials have demonstrated several advantages including low costs, good stability, easy preparation and processing, as well as modifications, leading to considerable attention. Generally there are five types of thermochromic polymers with different working mechanisms, including conjugated polymers, supramolecular polymers, gels, photonic crystals, and liquid crystals. This review focuses on the latest advances related to these thermochromic polymers, and summarize and discuss their different thermochromic mechanisms and potential applications. Finally, the problems and challenges currenly faced in applying such thermochromic polymers are disscused, and the future research directions are prospected.