Creative development of thermochromic pigment for aerogel structures is challenging. The process is complicated due to supercritical drying and aerogel structure formation. Pigment hast to be durable in chemicals and wide range of temperatures.
From the beginning, we focused on pigments in the form of a complex with coordination covalent bonding of organic ligands to the central metal ion. The thermal transition is achieved by heat-dependent restructuring of the hydrogen bonds of the crystals.The color transition of these thermopigments has a clear color interface, which, however, depending on the anisotropy of heat transfer through the matrix, can lead to color hues.We observe changes in color spectra when incorporating these pigments into various carrier matrices, their heat resistance and even antibiotic properties that could be useful depending on later use, such as resistance to mold, bacteria or algae.In any case, these inorganic-organic structures appear to be an interesting way of the functionalization of developed aerogels.
Dr. Křížová from the Institute for Nanomaterials, Advanced technology and Innovation presenting progress in pigment development
Dr. Fijalkowski describing the process of super critical drying
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