SBIR Phase I: Bright and Lightfast Fluorescent Pigments for Paints, Polymers and Inks

小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是创造新的荧光材料，将为涂料、聚合物和油墨行业提供新的颜色技术。这些新材料将克服商业荧光颜料的不良特性，如快速褪色、提供弱颜色强度和在加工过程中降解。除了赋予织物、包装和玩具明亮、诱人的色彩外，荧光颜料的改进还可以改变日常生活的几个方面：更明亮的油漆和标志可以改善道路和机场的安全。下一代消费电子产品设计师将为他们的最新小玩意儿提供新的调色板。农业科学家将拥有一种研究作物处理的新工具。因此，这一研究项目的成功有可能在价值数十亿美元的着色剂市场占据份额，打破人们对荧光颜料的预期，为消费者带来新产品，并创造高科技就业机会。此外，这个项目利用与学术合作伙伴的合作，支持大学生和博士后的科学和创业教育。这个小企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目为这个困扰了150多年的化学问题提供了一个革命性的解决方案。现有的荧光材料是用颜料配制的，这些颜料具有稀疏的着色剂，这稀释了它们的颜色，使它们容易降解。这是必要的，因为荧光染料有聚集的趋势，导致不想要的颜色变化和荧光效果的丧失。该解决方案采用自下而上的“自组装”策略来消除聚集，并创建稳定的荧光固体，最大限度地延长颜色的寿命和大胆。本研究将对这种新型荧光颜料进行研究，以衡量其抗褪色性、改善的色度以及在现实条件下的材料性能。这将通过测量在自然和实验室加速的气候条件下荧光强度和颜色外观的变化来完成，并以涂料和聚合物的形式创建测试产品。这些测试材料预计将在更长的时间内具有更强的颜色，同时仍然适用于商业加工技术。此外，该项目是研究聚合物配方中自组装材料行为的机会，这是一个具有广泛科学和商业潜力的新研究领域。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is the creation of new fluorescent materials that will provide new color technologies to the paint, polymer, and ink industries. These new materials will overcome the undesirable properties of commercial fluorescent pigments, like a tendency to rapidly fade, give weak color strength, and degrade during processing. Besides giving fabrics, packaging, and toys bright, attractive colors, improvements to fluorescent pigments could change several parts of daily life: Brighter paints and signs could improve road and airport safety. Product designers for next-generation consumer electronics will have a new color palette for their newest gadget. Agricultural scientists would have a new tool to study crop treatments. As a result, success in this research project has the potential to claim a share of the multi-billion dollar colorant market, disrupt expectations around fluorescent pigments, bring new products to consumers, and create high-tech jobs. In addition, this project leverages collaboration with academic partners, supporting science and entrepreneurship education of university students and postdoctoral fellows.This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project provides a revolutionary solution to a problem that has haunted chemistry for more than 150 years. Existing fluorescent materials are formulated with pigments that have thinly dispersed colorants, which dilutes their color and makes them susceptible to degradation. This is done by necessity, because fluorescent dyes have a tendency to aggregate, causing unwanted color changes and loss of the fluorescence effect. This solution utilizes a bottom-up "self-assembly" strategy to eliminate aggregation and create stable fluorescent solids that maximize the longevity and boldness of the color. This research will study this novel class of fluorescent pigment to gauge its resistance to fading, improved chromaticity, and material performance in realistic conditions. This will be done by measuring changes to fluorescence intensity and color appearance under natural and laboratory-accelerated weathering conditions, and creating test "products" in the form of paints and polymers. These test materials are expected to have stronger color for longer periods of time while still being amenable to commercial processing techniques. In addition, this project is an opportunity to study the behavior of self-assembling materials inside polymer formulations, which is a new research area with broad scientific and commercial potential.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.