[kublikhan]

It might be the brightest idea since Edison’s light bulb.

A new type of polymer light source that’s nearing production could revolutionize the way we illuminate our offices and homes.

Known as the FIPEL (field-induced polymer electroluminescent), the device emits a healthy, flicker-free white light at a fraction of the energy costs of incandescent and fluorescent bulbs. It also doesn’t buzz like those fluorescent bulbs above you in the office.

Carroll says his device — which is essentially a thin plastic foil — will begin large-scale building tests next year and could be available to consumers in 2014. A paper describing the technology was released Monday by the journal Organic Electronics.

For overhead office lighting, a rectangle of the polymer foil could be fitted into standard fluorescent fixtures, Carroll says. At home, the pliant material could be formed into the shape of a typical incandescent light bulb and screwed into existing lamp and ceiling fixtures.

The bulbs and panels are far more energy-efficient than existing lighting alternatives. “In Canada and the United States between 25 and 30 per cent of the energy that’s generated in our countries goes into lighting buildings,” Carroll says. “A typical building will save anywhere from 20 to 40 per cent of their lighting costs.”

The FIPEL foil also produces a much more appealing light than the florescent office fixtures or their LED alternatives. “It is a little closer to sunlight, which is important because sitting under florescent lamps all day sometimes you can get a little headachy; you don’t feel so good,” Carroll says. “And the reason for that is the component of blue in the light is too great and your eyes don’t like it.” In casting a spectrum more closely resembling sunlight, the polymer lamps create a luminance humans have evolved to favour.

Carroll says similar flat foil devices — known as OLEDs (organic light emitting diodes) — have proven too tricky to mass produce to be widely utilized. The FIPEL technology is easy to manufacture at costs competitive with those of current light bulbs. “I expect to price the curly (fluorescent) bulb out of existence.” The lights can be made to shine in any colour, useful for signs. They are also long lasting. Carroll has one that has been operating for 10 years.

U.S. scientists reinvent the light bulb

[Keith_McClary]

Carroll has one that has been operating for 10 years.

I didn't see them in the Home Depot light bulb department. Should I look in the aisle with the E-cats, warp drives and Star Trek transporters?

[dissident]

It's plastic emitting light so there has to be a catch. How much aromatic hydrocarbon outgassing results from the operation of this miracle technology? As usual we are not told the essential details. This sample that has been operating for 10 years, at what effective wattage is it? I doubt these miracles will last 10 years at 100 Watt incandescent equivalent output.

[TheAntiDoomer]

See my signature. this is exactly what it's all about.

[TheAntiDoomer]

Love the doomer hand waving so predictable. Pops, got any solid hand waving to do on this subject?

[Pops]

Love the doomer hand waving so predictable. Pops, got any solid hand waving to do on this subject?

9

[kublikhan]

I didn't see them in the Home Depot light bulb department. Should I look in the aisle with the E-cats, warp drives and Star Trek transporters?

Unlike the eCat, this device is described in a peer-reviewed scientific journal: Organic Electronics. Volume 14, Issue 1, January 2013, Pages 8–18. It's next month's issue, but it is also available online (behind a paywall).

Also, these FIPEL bulbs have some similarities to OLED light, which you can find just about everywhere nowadays. The inventors claim they have overcome some of the traditional disadvantages of OLED light, such as expensive high cost manufacturing and short lifespan.

An OLED (organic light-emitting diode) is a light-emitting diode (LED) in which the emissive electroluminescent layer is a film of organic compound which emits light in response to an electric current. This layer of organic semiconductor material is situated between two electrodes. Generally, at least one of these electrodes is transparent. OLEDs are used to create digital displays in devices such as television screens, computer monitors, portable systems such as mobile phones, handheld games consoles and PDAs.

Disadvantages

Current costs
OLED manufacture currently requires process steps that make it extremely expensive.

Lifespan
The biggest technical problem for OLEDs was the limited lifetime of the organic materials. However, some manufacturers' displays aim to increase the lifespan of OLED displays, pushing their expected life past that of LCD displays by improving light outcoupling, thus achieving the same brightness at a lower drive current. In 2007, experimental OLEDs were created which can sustain 400 cd/m2 of luminance for over 198,000 hours for green OLEDs and 62,000 hours for blue OLEDs.

OLED

[dissident]

PS.

I am still waiting for the LED light bulbs to replace the mercury vapour CFL bulbs. I guess the problem is that the LED units will last for decades and there is no profit to be made with this sort of longevity. The market is definitely a sub-optimal filter on goods and services.

[Keith_McClary]

I didn't see them in the Home Depot light bulb department. Should I look in the aisle with the E-cats, warp drives and Star Trek transporters?

Unlike the eCat, this device is described in a peer-reviewed scientific journal: Organic Electronics.

I'm sceptical because they claim to have this for ten years. Industry has been working on various lighting technologies but they seem to have overlooked this game-changing breakthrough. Hmmm.

Here is what they are all about:
http://www.wfu.edu/nanotech/Commercialization.html
http://www.wfu.edu/~carroldl/Welcome.html

[kublikhan]

I am still waiting for the LED light bulbs to replace the mercury vapour CFL bulbs. I guess the problem is that the LED units will last for decades and there is no profit to be made with this sort of longevity.

LED bulbs have their own problems. First among them, LEDs don't operate well when bunched together in a bulb shape. They perform much better when spread out over a wide surface, like these: Led Floor Lamps

This is because LEDs, like all electrical components, dissipate heat. And when you bunch that many electrical components that close together, we are talking about alot of heat. So much so that for the higher lumen LED bulbs passive cooling may not be enough. Some LED bulb makers are investigating active cooling solutions(fans, diaphragms, liquid cooling, etc).

Cost is another issue. High quality, high lumen LED bulbs are not cheap to manufacture. Costs will come down of course as the technology matures but for now it's not cheap to produce these things. It's not some big conspiracy among bulb manufactures keeping these things off shelves, there are still some real issues to be worked out with LED bulbs. This article is a bit old but covers some of the main issues with high lumen LED bulbs:

Active cooling can boost lumen output in LED lighting. Active cooling technology can offer thermal capabilities that are superior to passive heat sinks and can raise lumen output and extend LED life in solid-state lighting. Further advancements are still required to make LEDs the lighting technology of choice for retail, residential and outdoor lighting applications. Cost and lumen output are currently the main limitations to the widespread adoption of LED lighting.

The cost of manufacturing LEDs is expected to decrease substantially by 2015. The US Department of Energy forecasts that the manufacturing cost of an LED luminaire or fixture will fall by about 40 to 45 percent over the next five years. These cost savings will be further enhanced by government subsidies and rebates.

Lumen output is another key factor in the adoption of LED lighting. Although LED technology continues to advance, high-lumen-output LED applications cannot be achieved with passive cooling alone. LED lights cooled by a passive heat sink, rather than with an active cooling solution like a synthetic jet, are inherently larger, which makes retrofitting difficult. A smaller heat sink may result in a lamp or luminaire that is less reliable due to heat damage to the LEDs, or a source that produces insufficient light for market success.

Thermal issues in LED lighting
Thermal dissipation is a key factor that limits the lumen output of an LED light. LED bulbs are available that are as much as 80 percent more energy efficient than traditional incandescent lighting, but the LED components and the driver electronics still create a considerable amount of heat. If this heat is not dissipated properly, the LED’s quality of light and life expectancy decrease dramatically.

Heat sinks solve thermal management problems for low-lumen LED lamps. Lighting manufacturers have had little difficulty developing viable 40W-equivalent LED retrofits for A-lamps, and many also have solutions in place for 60W-equivalent lamps. It is when you get into the high lumen counts that thermal management becomes a challenge. A heat sink alone will not cool a 75W- or 100W-equivalent lamp.

In order to reach the desired lumen values in a fixed form factor, active cooling may be required to dissipate the heat produced by the LED components. Some active cooling solutions, such as fans, don’t have the same life expectancy as the LED itself. In order to create a viable active cooling solution for high-brightness LEDs, the method of thermal management must be inherently low in energy consumption, flexible enough to fit into a small form factor and have an expected life equal to or greater than that of the light sources.

Synthetic jet cooling
Synthetic-jet technology provides an active cooling solution for LED lighting, and has been adopted by many major global lighting companies. The jets are formed by periodic suction and ejection of air out of an opening that is caused by the motion of a diaphragm.

Active cooling can boost lumen output in LED lighting

If they are trying to make LED bulbs that can breath, I think that might give you some idea of the challenges these guys are facing.

[kublikhan]

I'm sceptical because they claim to have this for ten years.

They had a prototype light up in a lab for 10 years. Doesn't mean they had a commercial product that was ready to go 10 years ago. Many hurdles exist between lab prototype and commercial product.

Here is what they are all about:
http://www.wfu.edu/nanotech/Commercialization.html
http://www.wfu.edu/~carroldl/Welcome.html

Not sure what this is supposed to be pointing out. Seems like you are saying if progress is not based purely on altruism, it's BS. Is that what you are saying?

[jedrider]

Seems like a good replacement for under-the-counter lighting that needs a spread-out light source. I'm game for it whenever it's ready.

[lowem]

From the little I've gathered so far, it looks like FIPEL lighting would be good for area lighting, rooms, enclosed areas, this sort of place. Comparatively, LED's would be good as point sources or for smaller areas like say for desk lamps.

Furthermore, FIPEL requires AC excitation so it's the kind of thing you would expect to plug into a wall outlet, whereas LED's can be powered by normal batteries and would tend to be more portable. It's probably not going to be a matter of one taking over the other. These could cover different areas of application.

[Keith_McClary]

I'm sceptical because they claim to have this for ten years.

They had a prototype light up in a lab for 10 years. Doesn't mean they had a commercial product that was ready to go 10 years ago. Many hurdles exist between lab prototype and commercial product.

The BBC covers this:

Prof Carroll says his new bulb is cheap to make and he has a "corporate partner" interested in manufacturing the device. He believes the first production runs will take place in 2013.

Stay tuned.

[cephalotus]

I use mostly modern LED light technology since about 1 year. They are "expensive" (only in relative terms, not in absolute money), but efficient and good quality. I do not care about snake oil technology... Let's talk about it when you can buy it in the stores.

[Keith_McClary]

ValeriaT commenting at Physorg:

Here you can read about new technology in details. It utilizes multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) dispersed in an emissive layer of poly (N-vinylcarbazole) (PVK):fac-tris(2-phenylpyri-dine)iridium(III) [Ir(ppy)3]. The problem here could be the stability (life-time), because it's fully organic system. It doesn't require rare earth elements, but the main problem is, it utilizes huge amount of VERY expensive iridium. Until they find a different material for it, then the whole technology is just a basic research without any practical value.

[kublikhan]

I like this comment better:

These filthy scientists are a threat to America's Light Bulb Freedom act. If God wanted man to use Luciferian glowing devil sticks then he wouldn't have given the world the glory and beauty of the incandescent light. God's shining light. Stop them while there is still freedom to be had.

[kublikhan]

BTW, I am not sure how ValeriaT concluded that a "huge" amount of Iridium is needed. FIPEL sounds very similar to other types of Phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes (PHOLED). And while these do contain Iridium, it is only a very small amount: .0008 grams for a square meter worth of light. That does not sound very "huge" to me.

The most popular phosphorescent emitters contain Iridium
Iridium is one of the least abundant natural elements
Fortunately, we need very little
•Iridium content: 0.0008 g/m2
•Cost of iridium: $15/g
•Value of Ir in emissive layer: $0.01/m2

Electrodes: Cost of ITO
ITO is expensive, not because of the price of indium, but due to the high processing costs

Conclusions
•The cost of the raw materials is dwarfed by the processing costs

Critical Materials for OLED Lighting

The high costs for OLED light are not because of the rare elements used, but because of the high processing costs. High processing costs is one of the major issues FIPEL claims to have solved.