What makes fluorescent paint glow

For this discussion, keep in mind that paint is a colorless medium that has finely ground pigment that is suspended in it which gives it the color and visual characteristics.

Unlike dye, pigment has no way of sticking to something by itself. Fabric paint like we carry here at Dharma is special, because the pigments are suspended in a so called Fabric Medium, which is acrylic based, normally, but has additives to make it softer on fabric than other more plastic feeling paints. Also, whether heat set, fixative set with our No Heat Fixative , or merely cured, paint for fabric must be washable! Fabric medium makes fabric paint washable when heat set or cured properly according to directions for a particular brand.

The thickness or thinness of the medium, and the transparency or opacity of the pigments, more closely define how best the paint can be used, i.

If you are painting on fabric, you use these qualities to decide what type of paint you need for your project based on the technique you are doing, i. Transparent paints are best used on white or light colored fabrics, and opaque paints are best used on dark or black fabrics. What kind of pigment goes into the medium gives each type of paint certain visual characteristics. This is where all the more confusing descriptions come in, like fluorescent, phosphorescent, metallic, pearlescent, iridescent, hi-light or interference.

That is what we are going to define next, so that you can refine your choice of color and get what you need. Phosphorescent - really truly glows in the dark!

For trick-or-treating and Halloween props, Phosphorescent paint is the spookiest with its otherworldly glow, and also helps you see your little tykes and identify them from the other ones when they are racing ahead of you to the next house of treats.

It is made from phosphors such as silver-activated zinc sulfide or, more recently strontium aluminate, and typically glows a pale green to greenish blue color. The mechanism for producing light is similar to that of fluorescent paint, but the emission of visible light persists for some time after it has been exposed to light.

It is sort of "charged" by the light. Phosphorescent paints have a sustained glow, which lasts for some minutes or hours after exposure to light, but will eventually fade over time. This kind of paint used to look fairly colorless or very pale in the daylight.

Our newer Glow Paint Tubes and Speedball's Night Glo silkscreen colors have pigment added that you can see in the daylight to make them more interesting, then when the lights go out, they glow from the phosphor pigments.

Fluorescent - Does not glow in the dark, but DOES glow very intensely under so called fluorescent black lights. Fluorescent paint reacts to long-wave ultraviolet UV radiation, commonly known as black light.

Rather than reflecting light back at your immediately, phosphorescent paint continues to reflect light back for a long time. This is why glow in the dark materials need to be charged up. When you charge up a phosphorescent paint, you expose it to UV and other light forms. When you then put the UV painted material into a dark room, it continues to reflect and emit the visible light for a long time. Regular fluorescent paint would appear dark, but phosphorescent paint appears visible as it emits reflected light.

Phosphorescence was first discovered in , by the Italian chemist Vincenzo Cascariolo. He discovered a stone which, after heating in an oxygen furnace, appeared to absorb and re-emit light. At the time, this discovery perplexed many scientists who could not offer any explanation.

It was commonly believed that placing it near materials would turn them into gold. Today, we know the material he discovered was a mineral called Baryte.

The process which he discovered is called calcination, and is used widely in the chemical industry today. While not all calcinated Baryte glows, certain forms of the mineral do exhibit these properties.

These days, glow in the dark paints are made using either zinc sulphide or strontium aluminate. Combined with other materials, a variety of interesting effects can be created which continue to wow people to this day. I've enjoyed building things in my workshop for over 10 years - having worked on everything from cars to coffee tables. I started Workshopedia in the hope of sharing some of my experiences with a wider community, and to encourage younger people to dive into DIY projects of their own.

Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. First — A Brief Introduction To Light You probably know sound travels in waves, but you might not know that light also travels in waves.

How Blacklight Paint Works Blacklight paint — or fluorescent paint — exhibits some interesting characteristics which make it unlike any other material. This is not an easy thing to do. And they argued for many years.

These little things can travel unbelievably quickly. How quickly? Well, imagine this: photons can go around the entire world more than seven times in just one second. When these photons reach our eyes, we see them as light. The more photons there are, the brighter the light. Photons can come in all the colours of the rainbow. They also hold energy which can turn into heat. This is why it feels warm when the sun shines.

But, not all light is the same. Blue and violet photons both have more energy than red ones, for example. For example, ultraviolet UV light, which has even more energy than blue and violet light, is invisible. Sunlight contains some of this powerful UV light.

Because it has so much energy, it can cause a lot of damage, like sunburn, if you get too much of it on your skin.