JPH0729547A - Fluorescent lamp - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide a fluorescent lamp by which a sealing mercury quantity can be reduced significantly. CONSTITUTION:In a fluorescent lamp where mercury and noble gas are sealed inside of a glass container 1 having electrodes and which has a phosphor film 3 on an inside surface of the glass container 1, a mercury sealing quantity is set in 0.0044 to 0.0088mg/cm<3> to content volume of the glass container 1, and an inactive agent of a phosphor constituting the phosphor film 3 is set not less than 1.3% to atom weight except oxygen contained in the phosphor.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a fluorescent lamp having a reduced amount of mercury enclosed in a glass container.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, this type of fluorescent lamp is 0.0 in the straight tube type fluorescent lamp with respect to the inner volume of the glass container.
11 mg / cm ³ , 0.0 for compact fluorescent lamps
5 mg / cm ³ of mercury was encapsulated in each (JP-A-1-
169838). This amount of mercury exceeds the amount actually required. This is because during the life of the fluorescent lamp, mercury is adsorbed to the phosphor, the emitter attached to the glass container or the electrode, or causes a chemical reaction with these substances to supply the mercury vapor necessary for discharge. This is because there is a shortage of mercury (hereinafter, this mercury is referred to as vapor source mercury). Therefore, in order to prevent a defect due to a shortage of mercury vapor during the rated life, an excessive amount of mercury is usually enclosed as described above.

[0003]

However, in such a conventional fluorescent lamp, since the amount of enclosed mercury is large when the lamp is discarded, it is necessary to reduce the amount of enclosed mercury in view of environmental pollution.

The present invention has been made in order to solve such a problem, and provides a fluorescent lamp capable of reducing the amount of enclosed mercury as much as possible.

[0005]

The fluorescent lamp of the present invention comprises:
In a fluorescent lamp in which a glass container having an electrode is filled with mercury and a rare gas, and the inside of the glass container is provided with a phosphor film, the enclosed amount of the mercury is 0 with respect to the inner volume of the glass container. 0044 to 0.0088 mg / cm ³ and the inactivating agent of the phosphor constituting the phosphor film is 1.3 with respect to the atomic weight other than oxygen contained in the phosphor.
% Or more.

[0006]

With this structure, the amount of mercury used can be greatly reduced.

[0007]

[Embodiment] In a fluorescent lamp, the vapor source mercury enclosed in the glass container is in a form that does not easily evaporate by adsorbing and reacting with various materials such as the phosphor in the glass container, the inner wall of the glass container and the emitter during its life. However, the clear mechanism has not yet been elucidated. However, among the above materials, the role of sodium in the components of the glass container in the reduction of the vapor source mercury is large, and it is considered that ultraviolet rays generated by the discharge of mercury atoms promote that role. Therefore, the inventor has focused on this ultraviolet ray, has created a phosphor film that absorbs the ultraviolet ray as much as possible, and studied variously. As a result, the present invention has been completed.

Usually, most of the ultraviolet rays are absorbed by the fluorescent substance film coated on the inner surface of the fluorescent lamp and converted into visible light, but a part of the ultraviolet ray reaches the glass container through the fluorescent substance film. . The ultraviolet absorption effect of the phosphor film depends on the phosphor crystal (usually called the matrix) and the inactivating agent (distinct from the co-activator) contained therein, among which , Dependency of deactivator concentration is high. Therefore, the concentration of the deactivator was changed to prepare a fluorescent lamp with a reduced amount of enclosed mercury, and the change during the lamp life was investigated.

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. As shown in FIG. 1, the fluorescent lamp of the embodiment of the present invention has a sealed glass container 1 having an inner volume of 680 cm ^3.
A protective film 2 made of aluminum oxide and a phosphor film 3 are sequentially formed on the inner surface of the glass container 1, electrodes 4 are provided by stems 5 at both ends of the glass container 1, and mercury and a rare gas are enclosed in the glass container 1. Bases 6 are provided at both ends of the glass container 1.

In the above fluorescent lamp, various fluorescent lamps were prepared by using the phosphors shown in Table 1 for the phosphor film 3.

[0011]

[Table 1]

Then, in this fluorescent lamp, 330 Pa in which argon gas was enclosed as a rare gas, and the amount of mercury enclosed was 0.012, 0.0088, 0.0074, 0.005.
It was set to 9, 0.0044 and 0.0029 mg / cm ³ . This is the actual amount of mercury enclosed in 8, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2
Each of them corresponded to mg and were enclosed by opening the glass capsule provided in the glass container. Five of each of these fluorescent lamps were prepared, and the time until a defect due to a drop in mercury vapor pressure during the life was examined. The results are shown in Table 2.

[0013]

[Table 2]

Table 2 shows the time at which at least one fluorescent lamp had a defect caused by a decrease in mercury vapor pressure, up to a life of 12,000 hours. Also, 120
For the group in which all five lamps did not become defective even at 00 hours, the average value of the vapor source mercury amount in the lamps included in the group is shown. The amount of this vapor source mercury was measured by turning on the direct current and simultaneously cooling the glass container 1 near the cathode electrode, collecting the vapor source mercury in this cooling portion, and quantifying the portion by chemical analysis. The time to collect the mercury from the vapor source was based on the time (cataphoresis time) when the anode side became dark due to lack of mercury vapor. The chemical analysis was carried out by dissolving in a nitric acid aqueous solution in order to distinguish mercury from the vapor source from other mercury. This was done by this method because in most cases mercury other than vapor source mercury is considered mercury oxide and mercury oxide is not soluble in nitric acid solution. The cooling was performed by winding a copper foil having a width of about 3 cm in a glass container and immersing the end in liquid nitrogen. In addition, in Table 2, the numerical value in the parenthesis shows the amount of residual vapor source mercury (mg), and the numerical value of 3 digits or more shows the astigmatism time, which is rounded to the nearest tens. A + E + H represents a mixture of phosphors A, E, and H, and the mixing ratio is 20:40:40.
Is. Similarly, C + F + H represents a mixture of phosphors C, F, and H, and the mixture ratio is 20:40:40. Moreover, the coating amount of the phosphor is 3 g.

As described above, the amount of enclosed mercury is determined by the glass container 1.
0.0044mg / cm with respect to the internal volume of ³Included in the phosphor
If the concentration of the inactivating agent is 1.3% or more, at least 1
A lamp life of 2000 hours can be guaranteed. Well
Similarly, a phosphor with an inactivating agent concentration of 1.3% or more is used.
It is used for the phosphor film 3 of a fluorescent lamp, and the amount of mercury enclosed is reduced.
0.0088 mg / cm with respect to the internal volume of the container 1³When
In addition, even after a life test of 12,000 hours, at least 1.0 mg
It was found that the vapor source mercury remained. Fluorescent lamp
Considering variations in the manufacturing process and mercury inclusion,
Since 1.0 mg of residual vapor source mercury is sufficient,
With the above configuration, the upper limit of the amount of enclosed mercury can be set.

As described above, in the fluorescent lamp of the embodiment of the present invention, the glass container 1 is provided with the protective film 2 and the phosphor film 3 inside thereof, and the phosphor film 3 is provided with the concentration of the light-emitting atoms with respect to the phosphor. Is 1.3% or more, and by encapsulating mercury in an amount of 0.0044 to 0.0088 mg / cm ³ with respect to the internal volume of the fluorescent lamp, the amount of enclosed mercury is significantly larger than before. It is possible to obtain a fluorescent lamp with reduced power consumption.

Although the straight tube fluorescent lamp has been described in the above embodiment, the same effect can be obtained with fluorescent lamps having other shapes.

[0018]

As described above, the present invention has an excellent effect that the rated life can be satisfied even if the amount of enclosed mercury is reduced by increasing the ultraviolet absorption efficiency of the phosphor in the fluorescent lamp. A lamp can be provided.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a cutaway front view of a fluorescent lamp according to an embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Glass Container 2 Protective Film 3 Phosphor Film 4 Electrode 5 Stem 6 Base

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (72) Inventor Hiromi Tomioka 1006 Kadoma, Kadoma City, Osaka Prefecture Matsushita Electronics Industrial Co., Ltd.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. In a fluorescent lamp in which mercury and a rare gas are enclosed in a glass container having an electrode and a phosphor film is provided on the inner surface of the glass container, the enclosed amount of the mercury is the inner volume of the glass container. For 0.0044 to 0.008
The fluorescent substance is 8 mg / cm ³ , and the inactivating agent of the phosphor constituting the phosphor film is 1.3% or more with respect to the atomic weight other than oxygen contained in the phosphor. lamp.