Electronic-ink-based colorful patterned color-changing fabrics and preparation methods thereof

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12258688-B2
Application number	US-202118726407-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 3, 2021
Priority date	Nov 1, 2021
Publication date	Mar 25, 2025
Grant date	Mar 25, 2025

Abstract

Electronic-ink-based colorful patterned color-changing fabrics and preparation methods thereof are provided. The fabric includes a conductive fabric microstrip formed by weaving using conductive yarn and insulating yarn. The conductive yarn forms a conductive region, and the insulating yarn form an insulating region. An electronic ink microencapsule layer is arranged on the conductive region. A flexible transparent conductive layer is arranged on the electronic ink microencapsule layer. A transparent polymer layer is arranged on the flexible transparent conductive layer. A surface layer of the microstrip is a conductive layer, and a bottom layer of the microstrip is an insulating layer. An electrophoretic color-changing microencapsule, a conductive one-dimensional nanomaterial, and a transparent polymer are uniformly coated on a surface of the microstrip, and a voltage output by a drive circuit is respectively applied to the conductive microstrip and the transparent conductive layer to achieve selective flip and color rendering of centimeter-scale micro-region on the surface of the microstrip. Upper and lower electrodes are connected with a control circuit to achieve centimeter-scale pixel control and large-size graphic display and make a conductive-fabric-substrate-based foldable, high-environmental tolerant low-cost large-area color display and adaptive visible light camouflage fabric.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for preparing an electronic-ink-based colorful patterned color-changing fabric,
the electronic-ink-based colorful patterned color-changing fabric including a conductive fabric microstrip formed by weaving using conductive yarn and insulating yarn, the conductive yarn forming a conductive region, the insulating yarn forming an insulating region, an electronic ink microencapsule layer being arranged on the conductive region for image display, the electronic ink microencapsule layer including an electronic ink microencapsule slurry and an adhesive, a flexible transparent conductive layer being arranged on the electronic ink microencapsule layer for providing an electrophoretic color rendering voltage, the flexible transparent conductive layer including a single-walled carbon nanotube and a silver nanowire slurry, a transparent polymer layer being arranged on the conductive fabric microstrip for encapsulation, wherein the method comprises:
step 1, weaving the conductive yarn and the insulating yarn into the conductive fabric microstrip using a double-layer warp knitting process, the conductive yarn and the insulating yarn constructing the conductive region and the insulating region, respectively, on the fabric microstrip;
step 2, uniformly coating the electronic ink microencapsule slurry mixed with the adhesive to the conductive region and forming the electronic ink microencapsule layer after curing;
step 3, coating the silver nanowire slurry on a surface of the electronic ink microencapsule layer and drying, coating a single-walled carbon nanotube aqueous solution on the dried surface of the electronic ink microencapsule layer to form the flexible transparent conductive layer after being blow-dried, and sewing the conductive yarn in a direction perpendicular to a length of the conductive fabric microstrip, so that the conductive yarn conduct with the flexible transparent conductive layer and are fixed to the conductive fabric microstrip;
step 4, cutting and disconnecting the conductive region with a low-energy Yttrium Aluminum Garnet (YAG) laser to form independent display pixels;
step 5, uniformly coating a transparent polymer slurry on a surface of the conductive fabric microstrip to form the transparent polymer layer;
step 6, applying a voltage output from a drive circuit to the conductive region and the flexible transparent conductive layer respectively to flip color rendering of a discrete single pixel for by electrophoresis; and
step 7, weaving or splicing the conductive fabric microstrip into a dynamic color rendering module with a fixed pixel density or a fixed size, and splicing a plurality of modules together to form a display device expandable to any size; and modulating, by a pixel selection chip, a voltage of the dynamic color rendering module through a gate voltage control drive circuit to display a simulated environment fusion pattern on the dynamic color rendering module.

2. The method for preparing the electronic-ink-based colorful patterned color-changing fabric of claim 1 , wherein in the step 2, a volume ratio of the electronic ink microencapsule slurry to the adhesive is (1.5˜2.5):1, the adhesive being a waterborne polyurethane, a waterborne polyacrylic acid, or a mixture of the waterborne polyurethane and the waterborne polyacrylic acid, a concentration of the adhesive being 10 wt %˜30 wt %, and a concentration of the electronic ink microencapsule slurry being 1.1 g/cm 3 ˜1.3 g/cm 3 .

3. The method for preparing the electronic-ink-based colorful patterned color-changing fabric of claim 2 , wherein in the step 3, a concentration of silver nanowires in the silver nanowire slurry is 1×10 −2 wt %˜1×10 −3 wt %, and a concentration of single-walled carbon nanotubes in the single-walled carbon nanotube aqueous solution is 1×10 −3 wt %˜1×10 −4 wt %.

4. The method for preparing the electronic-ink-based colorful patterned color-changing fabric of claim 2 , wherein in the step 5, a transparent polymer in the transparent polymer layer includes the waterborne polyurethane, the waterborne polyacrylic acid, or the mixture of the waterborne polyurethane and the waterborne polyacrylic acid, a concentration of the transparent polymer is 10 wt %˜30 wt %, and a thickness of the transparent polymer after curing is 1 μm˜3 μm.

5. The method for preparing the electronic-ink-based colorful patterned color-changing fabric of claim 1 , wherein the conductive fabric microstrip is a double-layer structure formed by the conductive yarn and the insulating yarn through weaving, bonding, or knitting, the conductive region is located at a central surface of the conductive fabric microstrip, and the insulating region is located at an edge and a bottom of the conductive fabric microstrip.

6. The method for preparing the electronic-ink-based colorful patterned color-changing fabric of claim 5 , wherein the conductive yarn includes at least one of silver-plated conductive yarn or conductive nano-material-coated conductive yarn, a yarn size of the at least one of silver-plated conductive yarn or conductive nano-material-coated conductive yarn being smaller than or equal to 100 D, and a monofilament size of the at least one of silver-plated conductive yarn or conductive nano-material-coated conductive yarn being smaller than or equal to 30 D; and the insulating yarn includes at least one of nylon, polyester, or polypropylene, or blended yarn, a yarn size of the at least one of nylon, polyester, or polypropylene, or blended yarn being smaller than or equal to 100 D, and a monofilament size of the at least one of nylon, polyester, or polypropylene, or blended yarn being smaller than or equal to 15 D.

7. The method for preparing the electronic-ink-based colorful patterned color-changing fabric of claim 1 , wherein the silver nanowire slurry is an ethanol solution of the silver nanowires or an aqueous solution of the silver nanowires, and the silver nanowires have an average diameter of 15 nm˜20 nm and an aspect ratio of 1000˜2000.

8. The method for preparing the electronic-ink-based colorful patterned color-changing fabric of claim 1 , wherein the electronic ink microencapsule slurry includes electrophoretic particles that achieve two-color interchanging under different voltages or multicolor electrophoretic particles with different electrophoretic mobility, the two-color interchanging includes interchanging of at least one of black and white, blue and white, red and white, or green and white.

9. The method for preparing the electronic-ink-based colorful patterned color-changing fabric of claim 1 , wherein the conductive fabric microstrip is further provided with the drive circuit for applying the voltage and the pixel selection chip for controlling the drive circuit to form a pattern on a surface of the color-changing fabric, the pixel selection chip being signally connected to the drive circuit, and a signal output end of the drive circuit being connected to the conductive region and the flexible transparent conductive layer respectively.

Assignees

• Univ Southeast

Inventors

• Yin Chaoyi
• Liu Ruifang
• Ba Long

Classifications

• D10B2403/0112

  One smooth surface, e.g. laminated or coated · CPC title

• D10B2403/0311

  Small thickness fabric, e.g. ribbons, tapes or straps · CPC title

• D10B2403/02431

  with electronic components, e.g. sensors or switches · CPC title

• D10B2403/02421

  containing particulate matter, e.g. powder or granulate · CPC title

• D04B21/08 Primary

  characterised by thread material · CPC title