Tag Archives: lighting
Researchers at Wake Forest University in North Carolina have reported that they have developed a plastic material that glows when an electric current runs through it. The material, which can be formed in any shape, gives off a soft, white light, similar to sunkight, and is just as energy efficient as LEDs. The researchers made the material by adding multi-walled carbon nanotubes to three layers of moldable white light-emitting polymer. Adding the nanotubes led to a five-fold increase in the light emitted by the polymer without the nanotubes. The material can be shaped into bulbs that fit standard light fittings, … Continue Reading
French biochemist Pierre Calleja has developed a lighting system that draws CO2 from the atmosphere and uses micro-algae to produce light with oxygen as a byproduct. The inventor claims that one of his street lights will absorb CO2 at the rate of one tonne a year – which is about as much as a typical tree absorbs in its lifetime.
At the recent Lightfair Internation in Las Vagas, GE, Phillips and Sylvania all announced LED light bulbs with an output equivalent to a 100-watt incandescent bulb. The Philips and Sylvania bulbs are extensions of current technology but the GE bulb is cooled by "breathing". A diaphragm embedded in the GE bulb vibrates to create a current of air – pulling cool air into the bulb and expelling warm air across metal fins on the outside of the bulb. GE says that its "Energy Smart" bulb will give the equivalent of a 100-watt incandescent light bulb in all directions while consuming … Continue Reading
Delft University of Technology is currently testing an intelligent street lighting system which reduces electricity consumption and CO2 emissions by up to 80%, reduces light pollution and is cheaper to maintain than current systems. The system, which was designed by Chintan Shah for a competition to improve the University’s energy efficiency, consists of LED street lights, motion sensors and wireless communication. When there are no cars, cyclists or pedestrians in the vicinity, the lights are dimmed to about 20% of their normal power while passers-by move in a safe circle of light. An added bonus is the fact that the … Continue Reading
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a lighting control system which they say can reduce power usage by 65 to 90% beyond the savings made by switching to efficient light sources, such as LEDs. The system consists of control devices, about the size of a business card, that can be placed on users’ desks. These contain light sensors which monitor the light falling on the workspace, as well as controls to adjust both the intensity and the color balance of the light. The sensors can also identify how much light comes from different fixtures and measure any … Continue Reading
Swedish and American researchers have succeeded in producing a new type of lighting component that is inexpensive to produce and can be fully recycled. The invention paves the way for glowing wallpaper made entirely of recylclable plastic. OLEDs (organic light-emitting diodes) have recently been introduced commercially in some mobile phones, cameras and TVs. These consist of a light-generating layer of plastic placed between two electrodes, one of which must be transparent and is currently made from indium tin-oxide alloy. OLEDs are relatively expensive because indium is rare and expensive and is difficult to recycle. Now researchers at Linköping and Umeå … Continue Reading
The New York Department of Transportation has contracted a lighting design group, the Office of Visual Interaction, to trial LED street lighting. If the trial is successful, the city intends to replace all of its 300,000 street lights The contract includes the complete redesign of lamp posts – with the new ones having dedicated channels to hang signs, traffic controls and accessories. Each of the new lights will have up to 100 LEDs with different configurations for roadways, footpaths and parks. The LED lamps are expected to reduce electricityconsumption by about a third and to last twice as long as … Continue Reading
Researchers at Purdue University in Indiana have reported that they have succeeded in overcoming a major obstacle in the production of low-cost LEDs. LEDs are far more efficient and have a much longer life than traditional incandescent lights. However, current LEDs are also much more expensive to produce. One of the major factors in the cost of production is the need to use sapphire as the substrate for blue LEDS and, consequently, for the blue component of white solid state lighting. The Purdue researchers have solved this problem by developing a technique to create LEDs on low-cost, metal-coated silicon wafers. … Continue Reading
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Renewables News- New Aussie Technology to Clean Polluted WaterScientists from Deakin University, together with French colleagues, say that they have manufactured a lightweight and reusable material that can absorb up to 33 times its weight in a wide range of spilt oils, chemical solvents and dyes, while repelling … Continue Reading → […]
- Aussie Researchers Make Efficient Solar Cells from Low-grade SiliconResearchers at the University of New South Wales have found a way to make very high efficiency solar cells out of cheap, low-grade silicon. It has been known for several decades that hydrogen atoms can be introduced into the atomic … Continue Reading → […]
- First Aussie “Hot Rocks” Power Plant Begins ProducingThe first power plant in Australia to produce electricity using an enhanced geothermal ("hot rocks") system has begun producing electricity in the far north-east of South Australia. The one-megawatt Habanero pilot plant near outback Innamincka is operated by Geodynamics. Geodynamics … Continue Reading → […]
- New Aussie Technology to Clean Polluted Water
