Japan will make transparent plastic for the next generation of light-emitting display

A research team from Kyoto University in Japan announced on November 21 that they successfully made soft and transparent plastics using crab shells and shrimp shells. The new material is expected to be used to develop the next generation of organic light emitting display.

The team first used the ultra-fine nano-sized fiber structure of the crab shell. They used the preparation to remove the calcium carbonate and protein from the crab shells. The powdered crab shells were mixed with water, filtered to form a white paper film with a thickness of 100 μm to 200 μm, and then the film was saturated with a transparent acrylic resin. In this way the resin is reinforced and the white film becomes transparent.

Since the fiber of the crab shell is even more delicate than the artificial nanofiber, and the thickness is uniform, the transparency of the film is improved. Its use in organic light-emitting display panels and solar cell substrates still needs improvement to reduce the loss of transparency due to thermal expansion. The film can be modified to suppress thermal expansion to the same degree as currently used glass. The same results were also obtained in shrimp shell experiments.

The research results are published in the electronic version of the British scientific journal "Soft Matter." (Chen Chao Editor: Wang Huimian)