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In order to fulfill “U.S. Energy Independence and Security Act” and the “EU Eco-Design Directive”, the artificial lighting system has been transited from incandescent to energy saving lamps (CFL) and LED, which is to save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Compared with traditional incandescent bulbs, energy saving lamps (CFL) and light emitting diode (LED) and other new bulbs can save 70 to 85 percent of energy consumption, the life is also greatly increased, and thus is considered as a technology with great potential .However, these new bulbs are designed to be much more complex than conventional bulbs, with potentially adverse environmental effects, even approximates to electronic devices. CFL and LED components contain more metal,which have the potential uncertainty environmental impacts, when it reaches its working life and need to be wasted, do need to make a special requirement? Seong-RinLim etc. published an article that is “LED’s potential environmental impact: metal resources, toxic or hazardous waste.” in “Environmental Science and Technology” published this month. They integrated three types of light bulbs (incandescent, LED and energy-saving lamps) to evaluate the situation of the environment and resource in many ways. The energy-saving lamps consume more antimony, copper (mainly used for coil and printed circuit boards), iron, lead (PCB and solder), mercury (spiral energy saving lamp), phosphorus, yttrium (fluorescence) and zinc ( protective coated steel). LED bulbs require more aluminum (heat sink), antimony (LED chip), barium, chromium (stainless steel), copper (coil), gallium (LED chip), gold (LED wire), iron, lead (PCB) , phosphorus, silver (reflective coating) and zinc (protective layer). Only tungsten incandescent bulbs (filament) and nickel. Therefore, it is very necessary to recycle the metal of energy-saving lamps and LED lights in .The management policy for the waste of Energy-saving lamps and LED bulbs should include the recycling system or deposit-refund system the manufacturer released for the waste. In addition, mark its potential danger on the product, throw it into the correct waste separation and recycling systems to avoid that it is thrown into regular household waste. Environmental Design Project (DfE) is a project the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency develop in 1992, which focuses on preventing contamination and pollution risks that is brought to humans and the environment. DfE requires to consider environmental quality issues in the product life cycle, from materials management to recycling and reuse to reduce the environmental impact. Waste Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure (TCLP) is a U.S. EPA test methods, designed to simulate the landfill into groundwater through the aqueous process. After the above tests found that due to LED bulbs need gold, silver, antimony, copper, so resource consumption is two orders of magnitude higher than incandescent, 2-5 times higher than the high energy-saving lamps. For the energy-saving lamps, copper has an important influence on the material consuming resources. Silver and gold are rare metals, antimony is also listed the material resource crisis in the EU. Although the copper has not yet reached crisis level in the United States, but the amount of copper is very high in the energy saving lamp and the LED , which is 1-6 orders magnitude of other metals, the developing is also worrying. the most metal content of LED bulb is aluminum, barium, chromium, gallium, which unobvious lead to the consumption of the total resource. It should be noted that considering supply risk, although the gallium estimates rather large in the world reserves, but is still considered as a possible crisis material because gallium is obtained as processing by-products of the bauxite and zinc ore . Instead, yttrium, gadolinium and cerium although belonging rare earth elements, but less likely to become a crisis media because yttrium, cerium fairly abundant in the world, very small amount of gadolinium. If the LED and energy-saving lamps continues to replace incandescent bulbs at the current rate, which will generate considerable resource consumption, as the supply of gold, silver, antimony, copper resources is inadequate. Since gold has a low electric resistance, mainly used to connect the electrode wires in the LED chip. silver as the fine LED reflective coating material. Antimony is the core material of the LED chip. Copper is used for the coil and the printed circuit board of the LED and energy-saving lamps. Therefore, in the DfE, these auxiliary components (non-emitting technology itself) is promising to reform and innovate to reduce its metal content, which is the same as fiber optic cables instead of copper cables in the information and communications industry. The lead lighting has been adopting qualified LED chips, drivers, heat sinks, shell and other materials whose metal content is in the standard range, which minimize harm to the environment, such as LED Flood Light body uses high thermal conductivity aluminum material, surface electrostatic is sprayed with high heat dissipation material, the mental content of the aluminum is not only strictly controlled within the standard, but also ensure the LED flood light has good heat dissipation, strong adhesion, waterproof, dustproof and reasonable structure, the high degree of protection reaches IP65, login www.lead-lighting.com for more detailed and professional LED lighting.
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light emitting diode (LED), U.S., Environmental Protection, Agency, Toxicity, Characteristic, Leaching Procedure, energy saving lamp, LED flood light, Ener,
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