Why do colors fade in the sun? And not just fabrics but also painted and plastic items?
In: Chemistry
Colours in durable products come from specific dye molecules. The shapes of these molecules, the distribution of electric charge within the molecules, and how they interact with other molecules, are all specific properties of the dye molecules, and they are what dictates the colours you see.
Sunlight carries a lot of energy. Every so often, a photon of sunlight will strike one of the dye molecules and cause a change. Maybe it will knock an electron off, or break a bond between two atoms, or change the shape of the molecule or how it interacts with the others. Once this happens, the molecule no longer has the exact properties that give it its colour. If this happens to enough dye molecules, the object will lose its colour overall because there will be fewer molecules left to give it that colour.
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