Color-changing T-shirts are said to detect water pollution in different cities

Find a white T, buy a purple cabbage, you can make a T-shirt like this. London's creative materials studio, The Unseen, teamed up with the British lifestyle company The Lost Explorer to launch a t-shirt that will change color on World Environment Day on June 5.

After washing in water with a different pH value, this dark purple T-shirt will start to change color. David De Rothschild, the founder of The Lost Explorer, wore such a T-shirt, deliberately squeezing a whole lemon juice into the clothes in front of people. The people around him just thought he was crazy, but soon their critiques changed. “It’s like watching bee pollination, the process of color change is very beautiful and harmonious, and they can’t understand what it is. Why," David said.

When you encounter water with different pH, the color of the T-shirt will change.

Lauren Bowker, the founder of The Unseen, washed three T-shirts with London tap water, acid rain and water from the Dead Sea, which turned into light purple, pink and light yellow. Of course, this T-shirt can also change more colors. For example, water with a pH of 3.5 can turn it into deep purple, and in water with pH values ​​of 8 and 9, it can turn into fading. The blue color and the forest green.

The secret behind it is the dye of the garment, the juice of purple cabbage. Purple cabbage contains a large amount of anthocyanins. This natural pigment is a pH indicator. It exhibits different colors when it encounters different acids and bases. It is roughly summarized, from acidic to neutral. In the alkaline range, the pigment will change between red, purple and green, respectively. When the pH is greater than 12.5, yellow will appear.

Thus The Unseen and The Lost Explorer believe that when people can travel to different cities with such T-shirts, they can be washed with local water to detect water pollution.

However, this T-shirt is not for sale. The two founders of The Unseen and The Lost Explorer, hoping that people can make such a piece of clothing themselves, they also launched a video, which Lauren Bowker showed you how to make dyes and dye them purple. . The purpose of this is to connect people with nature, based on the theme of this year's World Environment Day, "Connecting to Nature."

In Lauren Bowker's view, this is a powerful way to connect people with environmental issues through fashion: "Trump announced that the United States has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement, which is very shocking, but people really understand what it means? Maybe not, because not everyone knows politics... but if I see that when a car drives past (splashing water) or water that is too acidic to survive in the frog, let a T The shirt changed color and I will understand."