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Spiral compact fluorescent light bulb

A compact fluorescent lamp (CFL), also known as a compact fluorescent light bulb and energy saving lightbulb, is a type of fluorescent lamp which screws into a regular light bulb socket, or plugs into a small lighting fixture. In contrast to incandescent light bulbs, they have a longer life and use less electricity. In fact, their savings in electricity expenditures are many times their higher initial cost.

Details

Globally introduced in the early 1980s, compact fluorescent lamps have been steadily increasing in sales for several years as their quality increases, size and price decrease, color rendition improves, and more people find that the savings in energy costs (even indirectly, by saving on cooling) outweighs the initial replacement cost. The typical consumer lamp is an "integrated" lamp, containing both the burner and electronics. Because high quality electronics can outlast the burner, professional users(such as hotels and airports) have dedicated electronics, with the burner becoming a consumable part which is replaced. This also allows for more sophisticated electronics, for example including the capability to dim the lamp. This system is known as a non-integrated Compact Fluorescent lamp.

The advantages of CFLs over regular incandescent light bulbs includes both

• Their long life - 8,000 to 15,000 hours instead of 750 to 1,000 hours and
• Savings in electricity costs, because they use 1/4 as much power to produce an equivalent amount of light.

For example, a 25 watt CFL produces the same amount of light as a 100 watt incandescent bulb (approximately 1700 lumens).

Colors

CFLs are produced in varying shades of white:

• "Warm white" (2,700 K) provides a light extremely similar to that of an incandescent bulb, somewhat yellow in appearance;
• "Soft white" (3,500 K) bulbs emit a yellowish-white light
• "Cool white" (4,100 K) bulbs more of a pure white tone, and
• "Daylight" (6,400 K) bulbs, which is slightly bluish-white

The "K"s mean kelvins. This is a color temperature, and this number is a more quantitative way of denoting the color of light given off. The higher the number, the "cooler" the shade.

CFLs are also produced, less commonly, in other colors:

• Red, green, and pink, primarily for novelty purposes.
• Yellow, for outdoor lighting, does not attract insects.
• Blacklight, for special effects. CFLs are an efficient source of "long wave" ultraviolet light, dozens of times more efficient than incandescent "blacklight" bulbs.

Being a gas discharge lamp, CFL lamps do not generate all frequencies of visible light. The actual color rendering index is a design compromise (see below). With less than perfect color rendering, CFLs can be unsatisfactory for inside lighting, although modern, high quality designs are proving acceptable for home use.

Disposing of CFLs

It is recommended that compact fluorescent lamps not be thrown away with normal trash. They should be treated as you would treat batteries. This is because they contain trace amounts of mercury. The amount in them isn't large enough to pose the users a hazard, but it does become a concern at landfills, where the mercury from many bulbs could leak into the ground. The recommended course of disposal varies depending on the country or city, so a consumer is advised to ask the local authorities. Usually, one can either

• Bring back used CFLs to where they were purchased, so the store will recycle them correctly, or
• Bring used CFLs to a local recycling facility.

It is interesting to note that coal power plants are the single largest source of mercury emissions into the environment. A coal power plant burning enough fuel to power an incandescent light bulb instead of a CFL would release more mercury into the air than is actually contained in a CFL itself.

Comparison of electricity cost

A kilowatt-hour is a unit of energy, and in the United States and many other countries this is the unit in which electricity is purchased. The cost of electricity in the United States ranges from $0.06 to $0.38 per kilowatt-hour (see Electricity Rates).

The following example shows how to calculate total cost of electricity for running an incandescent light bulb in comparison with a compact fluorescent light bulb.

Electricity Cost (for cost of $0.10 per kW-hour)

If you have a kW-hour cost of 12 cents, which is about average in the USA, and would like a simpler way of calculating the difference, 1 watt costs about $1 per year (~8000 hrs) of continuous use, or the minimum life of most CFL bulbs. So you can figure your electricity savings per bulb by just subtracting the wattage, say 60 - 15, and you save $45 in electricity cost. If you have a graduated rate, where the more you use the more you pay per kW, you need to use the highest per kW number, because that is the electricity you are saving. In California, many people are paying in excess of 20 cents for the highest rate in the graduated rate scheme, so they are saving almost $2 per watt per CFL bulb, often saving over $100 in electricity cost per $8 CFL bulb.

Incandescent light bulbs only last about 750 hours so it would take at least eleven of them to last as long as one compact fluorescent. This further adds to the cost as well as to the environmental impact of incandescent bulbs.

The initial investment of purchasing a CFL bulb might cause some to shy away from switching, but if you start by purchasing one or two bulbs, and use them to replace incandescent bulbs as they run out, you will not have to invest very much, and you will start saving money after a few months. This approach also has the advantage of replacing the most used bulbs the soonest. If you have an incandescent bulb that is hardly ever turned on, it is not using that much energy anyway, and you will avoid investing in the expensive bulb for a long time.

How they work

Parts

There are two main parts to a compact fluorescent lamp: the gas-filled tube and the magnetic or electronic ballast. Electrical energy from the ballast flows through the gas in the tube causing it to give off ultraviolet light. The ultraviolet light then excites a white phosphor coating on the inside of the tube. This coating then emits a visible light which is the final product of the CFL.

CFLs that flicker when they start have magnetic ballasts, but CFLs with electronic ballasts are much more common.

A more detailed description can be found here: fluorescent lamp.

End of life

As a system with two parts, a CFL can fail in two places. Design choices, component quality and quality of manufacture affect lifetime.

The electronics are subject to high temperatures, which always stresses components. Designers can choose components of higher or lower specification, and cheap components will fail earlier. Often, the electronics fail first in low-cost compact fluorescent lamps. The burner is sensitive to minor manufacturing defects, such as small cracks and imperfect seals which cause leakage and contamination. However, end of life often occurs when the electrodes burn out. Over time the electrodes evaporate metal, and eventually the wire gets too thin and breaks (this is the reason for end of life in standard GLS lamps). Higher quality driver electronics prolong the life of the burner, for example by preheating the electrode to prevent it being subject to the shock of the lamp being turned on, when the electrode temperature rises dramatically. Designing a high quality driver is largely a matter of using higher quality components. Burner quality is the limiting factor in CFL lifetime; the best CFL manufacturers (for example Osram (including Sylvania), Philips, General Electric, Luxlite) can reach lifetimes of 15,000 hours. Such lifetimes require highly automated and controlled manufacturing.

At end of life, a CFL should be recycled by specialist firms. In the European Union, CFL lamps are one of many products subject to the WEEE recycling scheme. The retail price includes an amount to pay for recycling, and manufacturers and importers have an obligation to collect and recycle CFL lamps.

Design compromises and challenges

Apart from the section above on lifetime limits, CFL design has design challenges regarding quality of light and efficiency. Although two CFLs may consume 12W, they can produce different light outputs.

1. Quality of light: A phosphor emits light in a narrow frequency range, unlike incandescent lightbulbs which emit the full frequency of visible light. Mono-phosphor lamps emit poor quality light; colors look bad and inaccurate. The solution is to mix different phosphors, each emitting a different range of light. Properly mixed, a good approximation of natural light or incandescent light can be reached. However, every extra phosphor added to the coating mix causes lost efficiency and higher cost. Good quality consumer CFL lamps use three or sometimes four phosphors, to achieve color rendering indexes of around 80 (where 100 is daylight).
2. Covered performance: To make a more appealing lamp, CFLs can have the burner closed behind a glass cover, similar to a normal light bulb. However, the temperature of the burner increases greatly, causing pressure to rise inside the burner. This causes a basic lamp to lose efficiency (to lose brightness). These problems have been largely solved using special mercury compounds and other techniques, and now globe and flood bulbs are widely available at hardware stores and large discount chains.
3. Electronics: Dimmability can be added to the lamp with support from the driver electronics. Also, large deployments of CFL lamps (a hotel lobby, for example) require electronics with low levels of electronic distortion to avoid disturbing the electricity supply, usually not a problem with home use. As mentioned above, features can be added to the electronics to extend life of the burner.
4. Time to achieve full brightness: Compact fluorescent bulbs can take 30 seconds or more to reach full brightness. This compares to 0.1 seconds for incandescent bulbs, and 0.01 seconds for LED lights.

Other CFLs

A variant on the compact fluorescent lamp is the RFL, or radiofluorescent type, which uses radio waves instead of ultraviolet light to excite the phosphors. Another variant of the CFL bulb is coated with titanium dioxide, which the manufacturer claims to reduce odors by ionization and oxidation.

Another new type of CFL is the Cold Cathode Fluorescent Light (CCFL). They produce even less heat, are more energy efficient, and are more compact. They also last much longer than conventional CFLs.

Gallery of compact fluorescent lamp types

External links

• Compact Fluorescent Lamps: What You Should Know
• Energy Star's page on fluorescent bulbs
• Energy saving calculator
• Energy Savings
• How Fluorescent Lamps Work
• How much coal is required to run a 100-watt light bulb 24 hours a day for a year? - from HowStuffWorks.com
• LampRecycle.Org - For information on recycling spent mercury-containing lamps
• Mercury in Compact Fluorescent Lamps - from the National Electrical Manufacturers Association
• Compact Fluorescent Pitfalls, Reality, and Recommendations

References

• R. J. Van der Plas, A. B. de Graaff, "A comparison of lamps for domestic lighting in developing countries" (Energy Ser. Pap. 6, Industry and Energy Department, World Bank, Washington, DC, 1988).
• G. S. Dutt, "Illumination and Sustainable Development", Energy Sustain Dev. 1 (1), 23 (1994).

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