“To create this LED has been developed a new material formed by particles of nanometric dimensions [one million times smaller than a millimeter] comprise an organic part, based on carboxylic acids, and other inorganic part made by aluminum-based mineral one, “ unveils Ruth Ferreira, a researcher at the Department of Physics of the AU and coordinator of the study. The particles were then deposited on the surface of a commercial LED that emits ultraviolet light, “light is that our material absorbs and converts into white light with high brightness.”
Xue Bai belongs to the Department of Chemistry AU
But LEDs AU were not only developed with the comfort that their use in lighting, both inside , outside or can provide the eyes . “Being the LEDs an alternative to conventional light sources, energy-favorable and more environmentally sustainable, it is expected that they will dominate the coming decades the lighting industry,” points Ruth Ferreira. In this sense, and to provide for the massive use of a technology that has given this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics Isamu Akasaki to Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura for the invention of LEDs emitting blue light as energy-saving sources precursors, the group of hybrids organic-inorganic functional Academy Aveiro developed white LEDs with cheap materials and environmentally friendly.
The ‘recipe’ of the new LEDs, unveiled today by Ruth Ferreira team, Xue Bai and Vania Made, the physics and chemistry departments and the Centre for Research in Ceramics and Composite Materials AU, implies the use of a material that “is produced with cheap raw material, non-toxic and can be found in nature in minerals such as bauxite which has a high annual production of 200 million tonnes. “ Features that are ” desirable from an industrial and environmental point of view. “
On the contrary, says Ruth Ferreira, “current white commercial LEDs contain lanthanide ions with high cost of production and being toxic, implies an extremely complex chemical treatment and recycling.”
Future has to be illuminated sustainably
Vania Freitas is another physical in the study
According with the International Energy Agency, lighting accounts for approximately 20 percent of annual energy consumption worldwide. “The most used lighting sources such as incandescent lamps and fluorescent lamps are inefficient converting only, respectively, about 5 to 20 percent of the electrical energy into light, “ Ruth Ferreira stresses. On the other hand, remember, “energy production used in the global lighting is a major cause of greenhouse gas emissions for each year produces 1900 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.” A quantity equivalent to 6 percent of the annual emission of carbon dioxide and 70 percent of that gas annually produced by all passenger vehicles.
So, says the researcher of the AU, “issuers LEDs white light have received considerable attention in recent years due to their ability to convert light into electricity more efficiently than that observed in conventional lighting sources, together with longer life, and no toxic material such as mercury “. Other attention reasons include the use of LEDs as external stimulus in the control of human circadian rhythm, plants or bacteria, with impact on the physiological state and the determination of brain activity and cell regeneration patterns.
To in addition to the Swedish Academy, also the importance of light in human activity has recently been highlighted by UNESCO which named 2015 as the International Year of light. “This choice is justified not only because light is necessary to the existence of life itself as, also, the myriad applications that have revolutionized society through medicine, communication, entertainment and culture “, remember Ruth Ferreira.
The article can serr found here.
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