Study of Color Evolution by Silica Coating and Etching based Morphological Control of α-FeOOH

Silica is used in shell materials to minimize oxidation and aggregation of nanoparticles. Particularly, porous silica has gained attention because of its performance in adsorption, catalysis, and medical applications. In this study, to investigate the effect of the density of the silica coating layer on the color of the pigment, we arbitrarily change the structure of a silica layer using an etchant. We use NaOH or $NH_4OH$ to etch the silica coating layer. First, we synthesize ${\alpha}-FeOOH$ for a length of 400 nm and coat it with TEOS to fabricate particles with a 50 nm coating layer. The coating thickness is then adjusted to 30-40 nm by etching the silica layer for 5 h. Four different shapes of ${\alpha}-FeOOH$ with different colors are measured using UV-vis light. From the color changes of the four different shapes of ${\alpha}-FeOOH$ features during coating or etching, the $L^*$ value is observed to increase and brighten the overall color, and the $b^*$ value increases to impart a clear yellow color to the pigment. The brightest yellow color was that coated with silica; if the sample is etched with NaOH or $NH_4OH$, the $b^*$ value can be controlled to study the yellow colors.

실리카 코팅과 에칭에 의한 α-FeOOH의 색상변화 연구