With the acceleration of China's road traffic construction in the next few years and even decades, the gradual implementation of urbanization and urbanization strategies, the holding of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, the further expansion of China's openness, the growing "cake" of the tourism industry, and people's fashion pursuit of colorful life, the development prospects of reflective materials in China and even the world market are very promising.

　　Experts from the Institute of Physical and Chemical Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences said that reflective materials mainly include reflective film, reflective ink, reflective marking paint, reflective cloth, reflective leather, reflective ribbon, reflective safety silk fabric, etc. The reason why reflective materials can reflect light is that most reflective materials contain a kind of high refractive index glass bead. It is precisely because of its existence that human light is reflected back to the light source in the original way, forming a retro reflection phenomenon.

　　According to the different positions of glass beads in reflective materials, reflective materials can be divided into exposed type and flat top type. Exposed type refers to that the glass bead is located on the surface of the reflective material and directly contacts with the air. Flat top type refers to that glass beads are embedded in transparent resin, and the resin contacts with the air. This type of material has good weather resistance, can reflect colored light, is not easy to adhere to dust on the surface, and is not affected in rainy days, but has complex structure and high requirements for equipment technology. The main products are all kinds of reflective films. Reflective materials used on high-speed highways belong to this type.

　　At present, the application of reflective materials is mainly concentrated in two major market areas, one is the planned special market, and the other is the civil market. At present, the special market for planning has formed a considerable scale, while the civil market has huge potential, which is promising for reflective material industry giants such as 3M Company in the United States, the pioneer of reflective materials in the world.

　　The so-called planned special market generally refers to the fields in which reflective materials must be used according to national directives and regulations, such as uniforms, road signs, signs and markings for public security, transportation and environmental sanitation department staff, and clothing and braces for field workers such as mines and railways.

　　Reflective paint includes road sign reflective paint and retroreflective paint. Traditional sign materials (hot melt paint and cold spray paint) not only need to allocate a lot of manpower to work, but also are prone to paint falling off. They do not have reflective properties. In foggy and rainy days, they are similar to the ground and can only be barely distinguished by strong light. Retroreflective paint refers to coating a layer of glass beads on the surface of ordinary paint. Its use not only overcomes the above defects, but also ensures the driver's safe driving.

　　In 1998, China's expressways reached 8733 kilometers, trunk lines or national highways 140522 kilometers, and 20 million motor vehicles. The annual demand for reflective coatings was 8000 tons, and reflective inks 2000 tons. The total output value reached 200 million yuan. At the same time, statistics from the Ministry of Traffic Safety show that 601471 people died in traffic accidents in major countries in the world in 1998, and 78067 people in China alone, ranking first in the world. According to the comprehensive analysis, traffic accidents in major cities across the country are significantly higher at night than in the daytime. The peak of accidents is concentrated at 8~10 p.m. One of the reasons is the low road visibility. The emergence of reflective materials has successfully solved the problem of "seeing" and "being seen" at night.

　　Experts particularly pointed out that the 2008 Olympic Games held in Beijing is an opportunity for Beijing and major domestic central cities and tourist cities to attract foreign tourists and show their image. One of the effective methods is to set up good guide signs, novel and beautiful street name signs, vivid tourist attraction signs, bright traffic signs and good station signs. These not only enable every corner of the city to include the concept of safety warning, but also enable drivers to have correct guidance in the complex traffic environment, And it will produce good social benefits to effectively display the city image and urban management ability. This demand is bound to drive the development of reflective material market and become a new economic growth point. Taking the renewal of Beijing street brands as an example, the Beijing Public Security and Traffic Administration Bureau implemented the street brand reconstruction project. Due to domestic quality and technical defects, the project was undertaken by 3M Company, which alone won millions of yuan. It is conceivable that the market prospect of reflective coatings and reflective materials in the future.

　　In addition, the reflective safety fabric can also be made into the harness clothing of environmental sanitation workers and traffic police to improve the safety of employees. It is estimated that if 0.02 square meters of reflective fabric is added to the clothing of each person in Beijing alone, the annual consumption will be more than 10000 square meters.

　　The so-called civil market generally refers to light industry, mines, railways, student clothing, all kinds of clothing, clothing, luggage and other fields. With the enhancement of people's safety awareness, the civil market is gradually expanding. Only the clothing industry needs 15 million square meters of reflective fabric, reflective leather and reflective webbing every year. At present, China's production capacity is not more than 2 million square meters, and nearly 1/3 of the volume is exported to other countries and regions. The market potential is huge.

　　It is reported that the research on reflective materials in China began in the early 1970s. During the "Seventh Five Year Plan" and the "Eighth Five Year Plan", the Ministry of Safety, the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Railways and other relevant departments have included the project in their plans and organized to tackle key problems. After nearly 20 years of unremitting efforts, China has been able to produce reflective sheeting and reflective leather on a large scale. Since the production technology of reflective film is difficult, and the production equipment is not complete, the domestic product quality is still at a low level, which cannot meet the high quality demand of highways and other markets, China needs to import about 20 million dollars of reflective film from 3M every year.

　　At present, countries pay more attention to the comfort and beauty of reflective materials while continuously developing traffic safety products. Not only are the base materials of the materials various, but also the color has developed from a single silver gray to the colors of longitude, yellow, green and blue.

It is particularly worth mentioning that reflective ink containing high refractive index glass beads has appeared in foreign countries, which can be printed on clothing. Depending on the color of the substrate, adjust the reflective ink to the color of the fabric. It is no different from ordinary clothing during the day, but when there is light at night, the pattern appears immediately. This kind of clothing combines fashion, beauty and safety, and becomes a new force in the clothing industry.