Non-stoichiometric ytterbium phosphate powder of low infrared reflectivity

摘要

Proposed is a powder of ytterbium phosphate having a non-stoichiometric phosphorus to ytterbium molar ratio of 1.08 to 2.0 and having a specified average particle diameter and specified diameter of the crystallites forming the particles. The powder is useful as an infrared-absorbing pigment in a printing ink invisible to naked eyes but detectable by an infrared detecting means for printing of stealth bar code patterns. The ytterbium phosphate powder can be prepared in a convenient and inexpensive method utilizing the precipitation reaction by mixing an aqueous phosphoric acid solution and ytterbium salt solution under specified conditions followed by calcination of the precipitates at a specified temperature and pulverization of the calcined precipitates to give the specified average particle diameter.