Choosing the right glow-in-the-dark pigments for your medium - a short guide

1. Regular or waterproof luminescent pigment?

   Your first step should be determining which medium will be used – based on water (e.g acrylic emulsion) or solvent medium. In first case you must use waterproof luminescent pigments – beside of higher price of such pigments there is also limited selection of available colours – in current offer only aqua blue and yellow-green. So if it's possible it's better to use solvent medium – e.g. nitrocellulose lacquer, epoxy resin, silicone. Good quality solvent base will protect glow in the dark powder from contact with moisture so it has not to be waterproof. Albeit if you're planning to use phosphor as an ingredient of paint which will be oftenly affected to friction you should consider using weaterproof pigment – so even if base of paint will be wiped off waterproof pigment will be still protected from contact with moisture.

2. UV fastness of luminescent pigments.

   Place where glowing pigment will be used is a second important factor. If our luminescent pigment will be permanently affected by direct sunlight or UV light (e.g. as a part of garden furniture) then we should only use three colours: aqua blue, yellow-green or sky blue (product codes JN, ZZ and BL). When you are planning to use pigment indoors or only occasionally outdoor then all pigments from our offer can be used. Reason of this division is that all other colours than listed above are made by adding to base luminescent pigment a second, this time fluorescent pigment which change glowing colour. This added, fluorescent pigment isn't resistant to UV light and with time it degrade. So if we use yellow glowing pigment L-ZO350 permenently outdoor after few months its glowing colour change from yellow to yellow-green. If you have any doubts about this point feel free to write to us and describe your application.

3. Choosing particle size of glow in the dark pigment.

   Size does matter in this branch. Generally bigger particle size of pigment gives stronger and longer glowing – first letter of each pigment code stands for its grain size (S, M, L or XL). There are exceptions from this rule as high grade glowing powders can have small particle size and strong glowing power – but also higher price.

   Of course glowing power is important but you must focus on technological limits of your application. For example if you planning to make glow in the dark paint you should use small or medium particle size pigments – thanks to it you will get smooth and even surface. Pigments with bigger particle size will give rough surface – also coverage will be worse, but if painted surface will be viewed from distance it may work well and gives better glowing compared to small particle size pigments.

   On the other hand large particle size luminescent pigments will be good to use with epoxy resin as a part of filler – layer of resin will hide large particles and surface will be smooth anyway.

4. Glowing power of luminescent pigment and other important data.

   You can find detailed luminescence data and a lot of other important informations in technical data sheets available for each glow in the dark pigment. To quickly compare luminescence power of two or more phosphors please use numbers from their product codes – those numbers are pigment's luminescence in mcd/m2 after 10 minutes in darkness. In fact mcd/m2 is hard to imagine unit but for comparision it's useful – for example we can see that pigment L-ZZ660 has almost two times better glowing than L-ZO350. You can also use comparison table of luminescent pigments - this table contains most important data of each luminescent pigment.

5. Temperature fastness of luminescent pigments.

   In some applications pigments may be exposed to very high temperatures – in such cases you should check technical data sheet of luminescent pigment. You will find there information about temperature resistance of each glow powder.

6. Last but not least, if you are still not sure which luminescent pigment will be perfect for your work feel free to write to us. We will eagerly help you in this matter.