Light Bulb Technology

886 Words4 Pages
Physics Extra Credit Assignment Everyday we use light bulbs in our homes, at work, at school, in our cars, light bulbs are everywhere around us. Light bulbs bring light into darkness; however not all light bulbs are created equal. The most common light bulb that people are most familiar with is that of the incandescent light bulb. Incandescent light bulbs are not very efficient and use much of their energy to heat the filament, instead of giving off light. This not only results in shorter life span of the filament, but with only ten percent of an incandescent light bulb’s energy converted to visible light, incandescent light bulbs are also much more expensive to power. The solution to this problem is new light bulb technology; these light bulbs are much more efficient, environmentally friendly and will result in more money saved over time. One of these new technologies is the halogen light bulb. A halogen light bulb is better than an incandescent bulb because it is more efficient; however much of its energy is still given off in the form of heat. Halogens work the same way as incandescent by heating the tungsten filament until it glows, but there is one big difference. Incandescent light bulbs use a mixture of argon and nitrogen gas in the bulb, which doesn’t prevent the filament form burning out; halogen light bulbs use halogen gas. This halogen gas creates a chemical reaction which replaces the evaporated tungsten from the wall of the glass (on an incandescent this tungsten can’t be replaced and is what causes the blackening on the glass) and deposits it back on the filament. Through this process the life of the halogen bulb lasts a lot longer than the incandescent because the filament continually is regenerated, but over time the filament does eventually wear down and “burn out”. Not only does the halogen bulb have a longer life span, it also emits

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