US lighting firm touts high density LED killer

High density lighting company Luxim is planning to move into the street and area lighting market with a new range of products next week.

The products represent another new market for the energy efficient lighting company, which sells a lighting technology called LiFi that it claims can deliver a higher lumen density than conventional LEDs. It hopes that municipalities will replace conventional metal halide street lamps with the technology, which it says can offer substantial power savings.

LiFi works by embedding a bulb in a material that focuses RF energy onto the bulb's gas and metal halide chemistry, heating it to a plasma state at a temperature of 6,000 kelvin and joining the two chemicals together, emitting a powerful white light.
"A lot of the light coming out of the source is already organised and going in the same direction," said vice president of marketing Julian Carey, who compares it to traditional metal halide lamps which need optical elements to focus the light.

The lighting technology can produce 144 lumens per watt, says the company. In contrast, conventional metal halide lights produce between 65 and 115 lumens per watt.

The lighting technology also saves power in indoor industrial lighting situations, Carey said, because unlike conventional metal halide lamps it can be turned on relatively quickly. "This is key if you have low-occupancy areas, perhaps in a warehouse," he explained. "If a forklift isn't there for a while you can dim the lamp or turn it off entirely. Then when the occupant returns, you can turn it on in seconds. Metal halide will take minutes."

This is the second market expansion for the firm in the past month. In mid-March, it announced its entry into the entertainment market with the introduction of a light designed for use in spotlights and other stage equipment. The company, which started production last year in the projector bulb market, received $21m in funding this January.