Facile Fabrication of Temperature Triggered Thermochromic Core-sheath Alginate Microfibers from Microfluidic Spinning

Dynamic tuning of color plays an important role in nature creatures. Color changing according to external stimuli lead to more advanced applications. Herein, we prepared thermochromic alginate microfibers which could dynamically change their color under different temperature through microfluidic spinning. The alginate microfibers had core-sheath structure and the thermochromic powder only distributed in the sheath layer. As the temperature increasing, the color of the fiber will disappeared at a certain temperature. Furthermore, when the temperature decreased, the color of the fiber will recover. So the color of the thermochromic alginate fibers could be reversely tuned by changing temperature. Moreover, the new thermochromic alginate fiber has good strength and could be woven into textiles which makes it hold great potential application in smart clothing industry.

Automated summary

The thermochromic alginate microfibers can dynamically change color with temperature variations, showing great potential in applications, especially in the smart clothing industry.