Smart textile fabrication with photocontrolable, reversibly photoswitchable and eco-sustainable fluorescent bio-inks

Abstract

Color-changing materials with controllable photoswitching properties are highly desirable for technical and smart textile products. In the quest for innovative light-responsive textiles, many efforts have been made to develop materials that can be easily incorporated into fibers and/or fabrics by conventional dyeing, printing or coating processes. Current developments commonly incorporate photochromic inks that undergo a color change upon irradiation with light of a specific wavelength and revert to the original color when the light source is removed. However, these inks are based on substances obtained by non-sustainable petroleum-based organic synthesis and do not allow controlled light-driven switching between colors. In this context, biomolecules which can be easily obtained by biotechnological means and that combine fast and easily tunable fluorescent properties, appear as a more eco-sustainable and highly appealing alternative with a wide range of promising applications. Therefore, this work explores the development of a new generation of eco-sustainable inks that take advantage of the unique optical properties of selected reversibly switchable fluorescent molecules (RSFMs) for the fabrication of innovative textiles with photocontrolable photoswitching fluorescent properties (Figure 1).