Intensely coloured polymer coatings could have uses in security and fraud prevention

24-May-11

Intensely coloured polymer coatings could have uses in security and fraud prevention. This coating has a highly complex structure based on combinations of block co-polymers (essentially alloys of two different polymers), making it extremely difficult to forge. Their transparent coating creates colour through the optical transmission of certain wavelengths of light — rather than simply reflecting light with metallic-coloured ink, which is currently used in some banknotes. As per project lead Dr Andrew Parnell from Sheffield University, a detailed understanding of this phenomenon should make it easy and cheap to scale this up for things such as banknotes and passports.