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Dec 8, 2008 10:00 pm US/Central
UNT Researchers Making A 'Better' Light Bulb
DENTON (CBS 11 / TXA 21) ―
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Organic Light Emitting Diode
Philips
Imagine if something as thin as a sheet of paper could light an entire room in your home and save money on your electric bill. Researchers in North Texas are hoping to make it a reality.
The next time you flip a switch or turn on a lamp think about this… almost a quarter of U.S. electricity consumption is dedicated to lighting.
For more than 120 years, incandescent lighting, like light bulbs, has brightened our lives, but they're not very energy efficient.
"They only have 10-percent efficiency," explained University of North Texas chemistry professor Dr. Mohammad Omary. "So 90-percent of the energy used to generate that light is wasted as heat."
That's why researchers, like Professor Omary, are working to develop more efficient lighting. "What we are trying to do is make white lights that can replace incandescent lamps in the workplace and in the residential house," he said.
Dr. Omary and his team have received more than $2 million in federal grants to study organic light emitting devices or OLEDs.
According to Omary, "A lot of energy saving applications can be taken advantage of by the kind of materials that we work on."
Graduate researcher Joyce Chen showed off one of their devices. The OLED she demonstrated consists of a paper-thin layer of organic material that emits a bright green light when electricity is passed through it.
One of the biggest challenges facing the team was how to create white light on its own and to do it without the typical red, green, blue combination.
Last week, the team, led by professors Bruce Gnade and Nigel Shepard, succeeded using materials made by Dr. Omary's group.
The U.S. Department of Energy says OLEDs will be 10 times more efficient and last 15 times longer than your typical light bulb.
The Department of Energy is pushing for the technology to be ready for consumer use by 2015.
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