High Pressure Mercury Vapour Lamp Applications

Low pressure and high pressure low pressure sodium lamps are highly efficient electrical light sources but their yellow light restricts applications to outdoor lighting such as street lamps where they are widely used.

High pressure mercury vapour lamp applications.

The german physicist leo arons 1860 1919 studied mercury discharges in 1892 and developed a lamp based on a mercury arc. Mercury vapor lamps have found the greatest use in industrial applications and outdoor lighting because of their low cost and long life and lamp sizes of up to 1 000 watts. In such lamps there is also much stronger spectral broadening. A sodium vapor lamp is a gas discharge lamp that uses sodium in an excited state to produce light at a characteristic wavelength near 589 nm.

The uv irradiation power can be as high as approximately 30 of the nominal power. This phosphor technology offers better color rendition than the more efficient high or low pressure sodium vapor lamps but still falls short of metal halide and ceramic metal halide sources. Because mercury lamps are so prevalent in current outdoor lighting and still safe when properly installed in a serviceable fixture the need for these products will. The mercury vapor fluorescent lamps can be either of low pressure lp or medium pressure mp i e gas pressure inside the lamp with nominal power that may vary in the ranges 4 115 w and 400 17 000 w philips 2017 respectively.

Charles wheatstone observed the spectrum of an electric discharge in mercury vapor in 1835 and noted the ultraviolet lines in that spectrum. While many applications are ideal for mercury vapor lamps they are being challenged by the higher efficiency and better color balance of metal halide.