CANADA: In the latest application for the wonder material graphene, light bulbs made with the one-atom-thick carbon material are expected to go on sale later this year.
While costing the same as current LED bulbs, or possibly slightly less, the dimmable bulbs will last for years and cut energy costs by 10 percent by capitalizing on graphene’s super conductivity, the developers say.
The company developing the new bulb, Canadian-financed Graphene Lighting, has links to Manchester University where graphene was first discovered in 2004.
In that year, Russian scientists Sir Kostya Novoselov and Sir Andre Geim, working at the university, first isolated graphene, an accomplishment that won them the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2010 and brought them knighthoods.
Colin Bailey, deputy vice-chancellor at the university, is also a director of Graphene Lighting.
“The graphene light bulb will use less energy,” he says.”We expect it to last longer. The manufacturing costs are lower and it uses more and more sustainable components.
“People are amazed at just how quickly we have managed to take it to market,” he says (registration required). “Sometimes it takes 20 years to get a new discovery out there.”
The bulb will feature a filament-shaped LED coated with graphene, a million times thinner than a human hair but at the same time 200 times stronger than steel, which will allow the bulb to conduct electricity more efficiently.
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