Novel Efficiency Lighting

Novel Efficiency Lighting

Chapter 1: Introduction

Background of the study

Novel materials and new applications for existing materials are continually being developed in university and commercial laboratories around the world. They are intended either to improve the performance of existing technologies, such as fuel additives to improve the energy performance of cars, trucks and buses, or to make new technologies possible, such as MP3 players and mobile telephones which use trace quantities of exotic minerals. Novel materials are used under controlled conditions in industrial processes to make everyday objects. They are also incorporated in products which find their way into daily use. (Mantorski, 2008, pp. 73-74)

In the field of energy technology for example, the development of more efficient engines, advanced solar photovoltaics, improved batteries and hydrogen storage all offer opportunities for the potentially widespread application of novel materials. Diesel engines are said to be made more efficient by the use of fuel additives, such as cerium oxide. Jet engines can burn fuel at much higher temperatures when rhenium is added to alloys used in their construction. Conductive organic polymers, inorganic semiconductors such as cadmium selenide (in both bulk and nanoparticulate forms) and fullerenes are of interest to manufacturers of solar cells. Various novel lithium compounds are being investigated to achieve improvements in the cathodes of lithium ion batteries found in numerous portable electronic devices, including laptop computers and mobile phones. Hydrogen could be used as an alternative to electricity as an energy source and storage medium. But hydrogen storage as gas or liquid currently presents problems that could potentially be overcome by using inorganic metal hydrides of light elements (along with platinum, palladium, nickel or magnesium as catalysts) or by absorption in high porosity materials with large surface areas, such as nanotubes. There is a similarly wide range of potential applications in many other fields. (Halonen, 2009, pp. 5-10)

The behaviour of novel manufactured materials, particularly manufactured nanoparticles, should be seen in the context of the existence of naturally-occurring nanoparticles to which the environment and organisms have been exposed for millions of years. Indeed, there have been long-standing uses of what we now recognise as nanomaterials, as illustrated by the Lycurgus cup, shown on the cover of this report. The Lycurgus cup is thought to have been made in Rome in the 4th century AD. The cup is the only complete example of a very special type of glass, known as dichroic, which changes colour when held up to the light. The opaque green cup turns to a glowing translucent red when light is shone through it. The glass contains tiny amounts of colloidal gold and silver, which give it these unusual optical properties.

Purpose of the study

The purpose of the proposed paper will be to analyse the novel efficiency lighting concepts.

Significance of the study

Lighting is a large and rapidly growing source of energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time the savings potential of lighting energy is high, even with the current technology, and there are new energy efficient lighting technologies ...