• Journal of Adhesion and Interface
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.110-116
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• 2016

A decrease in the retro-reflectivity of glass-bead-covered road paint because of a rainwater film significantly reduces the visibility of drivers at night, and has been considered as a critical cause of traffic accidents. For enhanced visibility, the microencapsulation of hydrophobically modified $SrAl_2O_4:Eu^{2+}$,$Dy^{3+}$ phosphorescent phosphor was carried out via suspension polymerization of methyl methacrylate (MMA). The effects of surface modification agent and radical initiator types, loading amount of phosphorescent phosphor, and microcapsule size on the phosphor content ($W_{TGA}$) in the luminous poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) microcapsules were investigated by thermogravimetric analyses (TGA). It was found that the $W_{TGA}$ value was ranged from 7 wt% to 81 wt%, which suggests suspension polymerization is suitable for the preparation of luminous microcapsules with a wide range of phosphor content. At a lower loading amount of phosphor, the $W_{TGA}$ value obviously increased as the microcapsule size decreased; however, the $W_{TGA}$ values with a higher loading amount of phosphor were less affected by the microcapsule size. The luminous microcapsules with the size range of $425{\sim}710{\mu}m$ were collected and tested as a luminous road lanes. It was found that luminance intensities of the microcapsule-coated plates remained higher than $300mcd/m^2$ for up to 100 s in darkness after 20 min of light emitting diode lamp irradiation. The results suggest that the luminous microcapsules can be a candidate for the replacement of glass beads for enhanced visibility of drivers.