Cerámica y Vidrio Preparation and characterization of photochromic effect for ceramic tiles

Ceramic tile industry is developing due to the technological researches in scientific area and new tiles which are not only a traditional ceramic also have many multiple functionalities have been marketed nowadays. These tiles like photocatalytic, photovoltaic, antibacterial and etc. improve the quality of life and provide lots of benefits such as self cleaning, energy production, climate control. The goal of this study was to enhance the photochromic function on ceramic tiles which is the attitude of changing color in a reversible way by electromagnetic radiation and widely used in many areas because of its aesthetic and also functional properties. High response time of photochromic features of ceramic tiles have been achieved by employing of polymeric gel with additives of photoactive dye onto the ceramic surface. Photochromic layer with a thickness of approximately 4550 μm was performed by using spray coating technique which provided homogeneous deposition on surface. Photochromic ceramic tiles with high photochromic activity such as reversibly color change between ΔE= 0.29 and 26.31 were obtained successfully. The photochromic performance properties and coloring-bleaching mechanisms were analyzed by spectrophotometer. The microstructures of coatings were investigated both by stereo microscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM).