Posted on 12/11/2012 9:51:04 PM PST by neverdem
Wake Forest University physics professor David Carroll works with graduate student Greg Smith on new FIPEL lighting technology. Credit: Ken Bennett, Wake Forest University photographer
Say goodbye to that annoying buzz created by overhead fluorescent light bulbs in your office. Scientists at Wake Forest University have developed a flicker-free, shatterproof alternative for large-scale lighting.
The lighting, based on field-induced polymer electroluminescent (FIPEL) technology, also gives off soft, white light – not the yellowish glint from fluorescents or bluish tinge from LEDs.
"People often complain that fluorescent lights bother their eyes, and the hum from the fluorescent tubes irritates anyone sitting at a desk underneath them," said David Carroll, the scientist leading the development of this technology at Wake Forest. "The new lights we have created can cure both of those problems and more."
The team uses a nano-engineered polymer matrix to convert the charge into light. This allows the researchers to create an entirely new light bulb – overcoming one of the major barriers in using plastic lights in commercial buildings and homes. The research supporting the technology is described in a study appearing online in advance of publication in the peer-reviewed journal Organic Electronics.
The device is made of three layers of moldable white-emitting polymer blended with a small amount of nanomaterials that glow when stimulated to create bright and perfectly white light similar to the sunlight human eyes prefer. However, it can be made in any color and any shape – from 2x4-foot sheets to replace office lighting to a bulb with Edison sockets to fit household lamps and light fixtures.
This new lighting solution is at least twice as efficient as compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs and on par with LEDs, but these bulbs won't shatter and contaminate a home like CFLs or emit a bluish light like LED counterparts.
"If you wanted blue lights, discos would still be popular. You want lights that have a spectral content that is appealing to us inside of a building," Carroll said. "You want a light that won't shatter and create a hazmat situation while your children are around."
Carroll's group is the first to make a large-scale FIPEL that can replace current office lighting and is based on natural white light. Beyond office and home lighting, Carroll sees potential uses for large display lighting, from store marquees to signs on buses and subway cars.
FIPELs also are long-lasting; Carroll has one that has worked for about a decade.
Wake Forest is working with a company to manufacture the technology and plans to have it ready for consumers as early as next year.
Carroll is the Director of the Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials at Wake Forest University. Center scientists have developed innovative technology including highly efficient plastic solar cells; Power Felt, a fabric that can use body heat to charge small electronics; and a combination solar-thermal heat pump.
Provided by Wake Forest University 
Where do we go to get that eco-wacko-wasted money back?
If it ain’t 35 cents a bulb, it’s no improvement.
“field-induced” — sounds an awful like EM transmissions. I wonder what the Human race is going to look like 10,000 years from now. Will we be born ‘wired in’ with our own biological network receivers?
That is of course if we survive.
If it ain’t 35 cents a bulb, it’s no improvement.
It won’t be!!!
Heck, take a regular florescent light and hold it next to a CB antenna and key the mic.
Sounds good, but might not be intense enough to replace a 100 watt bulb.
So, these bulbs are ‘neverdim’?.........
I bought a life time supply of 100 watt bulbs. We don’t often use them, so it’s not as bad as it sounds. But we sometimes use them for heat for things like plants outdoors that might be killed by really freezing temps, or maybe an engine that needs a little warmth in order to start in the AM.
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.
The “Real McCoy” is still available at newcadescent.com.
OK I see these are invented in America.
If production to replace the existing fluorescent bulbs is based in AMERICA, I’m all for this.
If it’s yet another scam to buy a bunch of imported bulbs, I say keep it unchanged.
I know, I once talked to someone who went to medical school in Mexico. They lived under the shadow of a 100kW AM station and when they need light, they brought out a few florescent bulbs from the closet and the station lit them up very bright and they studied that way. To “turn them off,” they put them back in the closet. That’s one way to save on the light bill. B-)
The refund department of the Bureau of Stupid Liberal Ideas is where you'll get your money back - it's located a stone's throw from NASA... the EPA also has a satellite office in DC.
Those 100 watt bulbs are nearly 100% efficient as heaters. If they were marketed as such, they would get an EnergyStar award.
I wish we had a truly free market in lighting technology, so that you could indulge your short-sightedness with impunity.
LOL. I never thought about it that way. LOL.
This new lighting solution is at least twice as efficient as compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs and on par with LEDs, but these bulbs won't shatter and contaminate a home like CFLs or emit a bluish light like LED counterparts.I've used and preferred CFLs for more than a decade, and it's abundantly clear that the older bulbs (some of which have just now had to be replaced) were much better than the cheap POSes being sold now. The new ones literally burn out in one or two uses about 20% of the time. I replaced three pretty dim bulbs in an old fixture at my mom's house with three much brighter and cooler CFLs, and literally the next time I turned it one, one was burned out.
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