Some Experiments with Phosphors in UVIVF

[colinbm]

Mercury Safety with Fluorescent Tubes

https://www.healthywa.wa.gov.au/Articles/J_M/Mercury-and-compact-fluorescent-lamps

[Andy Perrin]

Colin the safest thing of all is the leave the mercury in the bulb, leave the bulb at the factory, and buy LEDs for lighting needs. That post above is nice but isn’t an argument for breaking the bulbs on purpose. We can do this experiment some other way. 

[colinbm]

Yes I agree, it took me a year of procrastination before I took to destructing a tube for its phosphor, then in the same week I found a supplier.
 

[colinbm]

Replacement photo for #2...
Used the histogram, but this is only about 30% on the right scale, anything higher was blown to my eye.
I covered the edges of the PTFE with Aluminium tape to block the side light entering the block.
The colour picker says that the Tri-Phosphor is white, & the Disco White Pigment is a slight cyan.
The PTFE appears grey to me though.
 

 

[dabateman]

8 hours ago, Andy Perrin said:

If you got the phosphors on your clothes, the mercury is too. I know you usually are very safety conscious, but needless mercury exposure is seriously bad. The mercury is not necessarily in liquid form. It evaporates easily at room temp. Discontinuing this line of experiments using light bulbs seems like a smarter choice. 

 

This was with a far more dangerous form of mercury than the metal, but please remember what happened to Karen Wetterhahn, the chemist who spilled just a few drops of dimethylmercury on her GLOVED hand, and several months later died a horrific death. She was one of the world experts on mercury poisoning, and died of it at age 48.

 

MaxMax sells a lot of different phosphors, there may be a way to buy them or find them locally. Could different proportions of red, green and blue phosphors be combined to make a "white"?

 

Andy that is exactly how the triphosphor bulbs work. Take a look at the link I found above.  I learned something new here too.

 

Sorry I am late to the warning party, but yes Colin, you are best to throwout any clothing that now glows or was used during your bulb breaking time, even outside. Your first tests where no doubt with a high pressure standard bulb, not a very low pressure bulb, where you can see the mercury drop inside, rolling around. That Mercury may now be a problem. 

[colinbm]

 OK I'll ditch the shorts, though I must have broken more then 20 tubes in my seventy years & possibly as many as 50, as they didn't fit into out trash tins so we broke them to make them fit, never looked, but never saw any mercury either.
Do you like my second rendition of the 365nm lighting ?

[dabateman]

Just saw this was on page two. Hadn't read the newest posts.

Yes your new 365nm shot looks great. You might just have everything you need and don't need to break anymore bulbs.