Scientists are closer to producing outfits for the armed forces that change colour to match surroundings when soldiers move from a forest to a desert.
Clothing that adapts quickly to camouflage troops in different places would protect them against visual detection. Sunglasses, anti-glare mirrors and electronic display devices all use conducting polymers to change colour. Now, Wei Huang and Hong Meng at Nanjing Tech University, and their team in China, have designed an organic polymer that is green in the reduced state but oxidises and turns a sandy-brown when a low voltage is applied.
The full article can be read in Chemistry World.
The original article can be read below and is open access.:
Side-chain engineering of green color electrochromic polymer materials: toward adaptive camouflage application
Hongtao Yu, Shan Shao, Lijia Yan, Hong Meng,* Yaowu He, Chao Yao, Panpan Xu, Xiaotao Zhang, Wenping Hu and Wei Huang*
J. Mater. Chem. C, 2016, 4, 2269-2273
DOI: 10.1039/C6TC00197A
