(Newswire.net — January 31, 2015) — TOKYO – After nearly a decade of research, two Nobel laureates made a breakthrough with LED light emitters. Finally, they produced a prototype of running water purifier that is compact and can operate on batteries.
Contractor Nikkiso, the industrial pump manufacturer, hired and financed for a ten years the work on deep UV LED compact system. Finally, the company prepares for mass production of the unique product on the market, Nikkei Asian review reported.
according to the report, these deep UV LEDs emit even shorter wavelengths of light than blue LEDs, and they have promising applications in at least three fields.
On the environmental field, UV LED light has the sterilizing effects of deep UV radiation. It can replace overpriced UV light room sterilizers. It can be put in the sewage to disinfect water, and they are light and compact. This is already done using mercury lamps, but the new LEDs have many advantages: They are smaller and can run on lower voltage, around 5-7 volts. They are far more durable, lasting more than 10,000 hours, compared to around 3,000 to 5,000 hours for mercury lamps. Finally, they do not use toxic mercury, Nikkei reported.
In the medicine field, other then wide range of applications in sterilization of medical instrumentation, UV LED device could be very useful in dermatology to treat skin disorders with deep UV radiation.
Another example is the measurement of the purity and density of proteins and DNA by combining the LEDs with photodetectors, Nikkei suggests. In addition, company Nikkiso has already incorporated the LEDs into its kidney dialysis machines as a way to check for the elimination of waste materials from the blood.
The third promising field, according to the Nikkei Asian Review, the LEDs can improve the efficiency of the production line because they can reach stable output much faster than mercury lamps, which take more time to warm up.
The scientists behind deep UV LED light system are Isamu Akasaki of Meijo University and Hiroshi Amano of Nagoya University. The couple actually perfect the blue light LED technology for which they shared the 2014 Nobel Prize in physics, with Shuji Nakamura of University of California, Santa Barbara.