Nanotech Could Make Incandescent Light Bulbs As Efficient As LEDs (sciencemag.org)

sciencehabit writes: Thomas Edison would be pleased. Researchers have come up with a way to dramatically improve the efficiency of his signature invention, the incandescent light bulb. The approach uses nanoengineered mirrors to recycle much of the heat produced by the filament and convert it into additional visible light. The new-age incandescents are still far from a commercial product, but their efficiency is already nearly as good as commercial LED bulbs, while still maintaining a warm old-fashioned glow.

Comments

Re:Not a "warm glow"

[Junta]

They mean warm in the sense of color temperature (yellowish).

Re:Too bad science class drop outs banned incandes

[Microlith]

They did legislate efficiencies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

B. Lighting Energy Efficiency

        Requires roughly 25 percent greater efficiency for light bulbs, phased in from 2012 through 2014. This effectively bans the manufacturing and importing of most current incandescent light bulbs, though by 2013 at least one company had introduced a redesigned incandescent bulb for which it claimed 50 percent greater efficiency than conventional incandescents.[18]
        Various specialty bulbs, including appliance bulbs, "rough service" bulbs, colored lights, plant lights, and 3-way bulbs, are exempt from these requirements as well as light bulbs currently less than 40 watts or more than 150 watts. This exempts stage lighting and landscape lighting.
        Requires roughly 200 percent greater efficiency for light bulbs, or similar energy savings, by 2020.

So if they can make an incandescent that meets those requirements, who cares. Now go make another grievously uninformed post.

Re:Great!

[Firethorn]

Filament bulbs can last 5+ years, if you engineer them to, especially at the "warmer feeling" lower temperatures.

They can make them last centuries. The current longest lasting filament bulb is at 114 years and over 1M hours.

The 'trick' is that the heavier and cooler the filament it, the longer it lasts - but the less efficient it is at making light.

So a .25 cent bulb that is engineered to last about 3-6 months in normal usage is at a sweet spot - you could make it last longer, but it'd use more than .25 cents worth of extra electricity in that time. So it's cheaper to make it a bit more energy efficient at the cost of life span.

Of course, equations change as the price of electricity goes up.

Re:Great!

[Firethorn]

I'm old enough to remember taking our burnt out bulbs down to the local Edison to exchange for free new ones.

Electric company, I take it? Consider what I said, the electric company could have been 'rent seeking' in a completely different way than Phillips. Sure, they're perfectly happy handing you 75W bulbs that last darn near forever, but produce the same amount of light as the Phillips 60W that doesn't last as long.

That extra 15W could garner them an extra $13/year if the light's on all the time. Not bad for a giveaway of an under 25 cent bulb, bought in bulk. Cost differences for varying light output and longevity amount to a rounding error given how small the tungsten element is and that 'power' depends on the shape. Thicker element = longer lasting higher power bulb. Shorter element = shorter lasting higher power bulb. Thinner/longer = lower power. Balance to fit.

This is not a solution for LED

[GPS Pilot]

If this was such a good solution, it could probably be used for LED lights as well

No. Incandescent filaments have to be hot to produce light, but with its entirely different mechanism, reflecting infrared back onto a light-emitting diode will not help it produce more light. Heat is NOT good for the diode. LED bulb designs actively do the opposite of these nanomirrors: they transfer heat away from the diode. (You may have noticed the fins on some LED bulbs. Their purpose is to radiate heat and keep the diode cooler.)

Re:Great!

[Firethorn]

You make it sound like the absurdly short life of incandescent light bulbs neatly correlates to its efficiency.

Well, I wouldn't go that far. It's a value that can be tweaked, it's not infinitely adjustable in range between a 100% efficient bulb that's a camera flash to a 0% efficient bulb(well, 0% would be doable).

And yes, I was kind of not properly rating the effect of the vacuum or noble fill of a bulb.

As for driving to a store to get replacements? Who, back in the day, didn't keep bulbs on hand and just pick up bulbs as part of a larger shopping trip? Heck, even with LEDs I only recently put my last LED in and need to restock. Worst case I grab a bulb from somewhere less used.

When its cold enough, the entropy from my desk lamp simply causes the electric heater to take a little longer before turning on.

Or, if you're in a cold enough climate to not have direct resistance heating, you're back to still wanting electric efficient bulbs because the heater, whether heat pump or fossil fuel, is a lot cheaper than electric heat.