In order to fulfill the US Energy Independence and Security Act and the EU Ecodesign Design Directive, artificial lighting systems have transitioned from incandescent lamps to energy-saving lamps (CFLs) and LEDs to save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Compared with traditional incandescent bulbs, new bulbs such as energy-saving lamps (CFLs) and light-emitting diodes (LEDs) can save 70-85% of energy consumption and increase their service life, so they are considered to be a technology with great energy saving potential. However, these new bulbs are much more complex than traditional bulb designs, with potential environmental adverse effects, even comparable to consumer electronics. The CFL and LED components contain more metal. These components have the potential for environmental impacts of uncertainty, and when special requirements are needed to reach their working life, Seong-RinLim et al., "Environ. Science and Technology" published this month (Environ.Sci.Technol. ) published an article "The potential environmental impact of LED: metal resources, or toxic hazardous waste."
They combined environmentally and resource-based evaluations of three types of light bulbs (ordinary incandescent lamps, LEDs, and energy-saving lamps) in many ways. Energy-saving lamps consume more bismuth, copper (mainly for coils and printed circuit boards), iron, lead (printed wiring boards and solder), mercury (spiral energy-saving lamps), phosphorus, antimony (fluorescence) and zinc ( Protective coated steel). LED bulbs need more aluminum (heat sink), germanium (LED chip), germanium, chrome (stainless steel), copper (coil), gallium (LED chip), gold (LED wire), iron, lead (printed circuit board) , phosphorus, silver (reflective coating) and zinc (protective layer). Incandescent bulbs are only tungsten (filament) and nickel. Therefore, it is very necessary to recycle the metals in energy-saving lamps and LED lamps. Waste management policies for energy-saving lamps and LED bulbs should include the manufacturer's recycling system for the discarded bulbs or the “deposit-refund†system. In addition, mark the potential hazard on the product and put it in the correct waste sorting and recycling system to avoid throwing it into regular household waste. The DesignfortheEnvironmentProgram (DfE) is a project developed by the US Environmental Protection Agency in 1992 to prevent pollution and the risk of pollution to humans and the environment. DfE requires environmental quality issues within the product lifecycle to be considered during the design process, from material management through recycling to recycling to reduce environmental impact. The Waste Toxicity Characteristic Dissolution Procedure (TCLP) is a test method of the US Environmental Protection Agency that simulates the process of entering the groundwater through water dissolution in landfills. After the above tests, it is found that LED bulbs require gold, silver, bismuth and copper, which are two orders of magnitude higher in energy consumption than incandescent lamps and 2-5 times higher than energy-saving lamps.
For energy-saving lamps, the material that has a significant impact on resource consumption is copper. Silver and gold are rare metals, and they are also listed as materials for resource crises in the European Union. Although the copper in the United States has not yet reached the level of crisis, in the energy-saving lamps and LEDs, the amount of copper is very high, which is 1-6 orders of magnitude for other metal materials, and the development is also worrying. The most common metal content in LED bulbs is aluminum, tantalum, chromium, and gallium, which do not significantly contribute to total resource consumption. It should be noted here that although the global reserves of gallium are considered to be considerable in considering supply risks, it is still considered to be a material that may be in crisis because gallium is only obtained as a by-product of the treatment of bauxite and zinc ore. . On the contrary, although 钇, 钆 and 铈 are also rare earth elements, they are not likely to be a crisis material, because 钇 and 铈 are still abundant in the world, and the amount of strontium is very small. If LEDs and energy-saving lamps continue to replace incandescent bulbs at current speeds, considerable resource consumption will result, as the supply of gold, silver, antimony, and copper resources is insufficient. Since gold has a low electric thermal impedance, it is mainly used to connect the wires of the electrodes in the LED chip. Silver is an excellent reflective coating material for LEDs.锑 is the core material of LED chips. Copper is used in LEDs and energy-saving lamps for coils and printed circuit boards. Therefore, in DfE, these auxiliary components (non-lighting technology itself) are promising for retrofitting and innovation to reduce their metal content, just as in the information and communications industry, fiber optic cables replace copper cables.