Arkema commercialises new acrylic for LED lighting

Arkema Group has commercialised a new grade of acrylic resin that is better suited to handle modern LED lighting.

Arkema — based in Colombes, France — began making Plexiglas Diffuse-brand resins in March at its plant in Pennsylvania, the US. Production of the materials at an Arkema plant in Rho, Italy, will begin in May.

The material can diffuse light in LED applications without compromising overall light transmission, officials said. Typical applications for Diffuse-brand resins include architectural and indoor commercial lighting.

"The standard product had been a frosted-type product," LED lighting business development director Michael Lamarra said in a recent phone interview. "But it just didn't have enough diffusing power for LED emitters, which are very bright and produce an intense amount of light."

In order to get more diffusing power, lighting makers had been adding white colour concentrates to acrylic resins, but doing so was hurting the products' light transmission rates by 15-30%, he added.

Diffuse-brand resins now can provide better performance in what Lamarra described as "places where glare will hurt your eyes".

The materials also offer outstanding UV resistance and weatherability and excellent surface gloss and scratch resistance, officials said. The resins also can easily be extruded, injection-moulded, thermoformed or cut. They're recyclable and are available in smooth or textured surfaces on extruded lenses.

LED lighting applications are expected to average 12% annual growth between 2011 and 2017, Arkema officials said, with commercial applications making up the largest single LED end market.

The city is testing three types of LED (light-emitting diode) streetlights in three areas of the city.

The lights, while as much as six times more expensive, have a payback period of less than four years in terms of energy savings, said Jack Suggs, the city's electric department director.

The lights also last as long as 25 years, while the city's 5,800 current high-pressure sodium lights usually have life spans of around three years.

"It leads me to believe that LEDs are the wave of the future," Suggs said. Crews have installed eight streetlights each in three areas; Montana Avenue, Woodland community and Emory Valley Road.

The types of LEDs being tested vary to suit different environments: more direct lighting for wooded, hilly Montana Avenue, lights that aren't as focused for irregular-shaped streets and lots in the Woodland community, and high-powered, whiter lights to illuminate broader swaths on Emory Valley Road.

"We want to see what kind of comments we get and if we have any problems," Suggs said of the trial runs. In the past, the city has experimented with earlier generation LED streetlights.

"We have had mixed results in these early test(s), including unacceptable light output and a couple of premature failures," Suggs wrote in an email.

He said if feedback on the newest generation of LED streetlights is mainly positive, "City Council will see a long-term program proposed."

Currently planned is the installation next fiscal year of 300 LED streetlights. Suggs said $100,000 is now budgeted for that program.

It's anticipated it would mark the start of a gradual systemwide conversion to LED lighting that would span several years and adapt to evolving technology.