Highly transparent plasticized PVC composite film with ideal ultraviolet/high-energy short-wavelength blue light shielding

It is well known that ultraviolet light (UV) radiation is harmful to human health and affects the long-term stability of many organic materials. Besides, high-energy short-wavelength blue light (HEB) in the 400–450 nm range can penetrate the lens directly to the retina, causing visual damage. Therefore, these harmful solar radiations are pushing toward developing more efficient UV and HEB shielding materials. In this work, a design concept of highly transparent film with ideal UV/HEB shielding was brought forward. To achieve this concept, the UV absorbers and transparent yellow pigments with HEB filtering effect were selected as functional additives and introduced into plasticized polyvinyl chloride (PVC) by melt blending to improve the UV/HEB shielding performance of PVC. Firstly, we demonstrated that benzotriazole UV absorber UV326 has the optimal UV shielding rate (98%) compared to other types of UV absorbers and further confirmed that the HEB filtering of more than 99% could be achieved by adding 0.5 phr transparent yellow pigments. Moreover, the combination of UV absorbers and transparent yellow pigments makes all samples show more than 99% shielding effect in UV and HEB regions. At the same time, the stable mechanical properties of plasticized PVC composite film make it have great application value in the fields of building windows, automobile glasses, electronic screen films, spectacle lenses and LED lampshades. Graphical abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.]