When choosing ultraviolet disinfection lamps, we generally face two options: UVC-LED lamps and ultraviolet mercury lamps.
Ultraviolet mercury lamps have been the mainstream of the disinfection market in the past few years, while UV LEDs are the new semiconductors in recent years. Some friends may not know how to choose. Today we will compare the two from multiple dimensions so that everyone can make a more intuitive judgment.
Sterilization effect
Sterilization effect is the primary consideration when choosing disinfection products, but due to various reasons, such as the inconsistent sterilization wavelengths of the two disinfection light sources (mercury lamps use around 254nm as the main sterilization band, and UVC-LEDs can obtain a specific wavelength with higher efficiency through technical means), it is difficult to compare directly.
We can start with power output.
When selecting a UVC mercury lamp, you will usually see that the power rating is the only power data reference displayed. However, this power rating actually also includes the inefficiency and heat loss of the lamp ballast, and the effective output power of the mercury lamp at a wavelength of 254nm is 10% to 30% of the input power rating. For example, a 10W mercury lamp can achieve a UV output power of 1W.
Let's look at UVC-LED again. Taking the conventional 265nm wavelength and 60mW UVCLED as an example, this means that 17 LEDs are needed to achieve the same power intensity as a mercury lamp.
But this is not rigorous enough, because we also need to consider the difference in wavelength output. Scientists have found through a large number of experiments that the DNA/RNA in bacteria and viruses absorbs part of the UVC band ultraviolet rays. The absorption is strongest around 260nm.
Obviously, the sterilization effect of the 254nm wavelength used by mercury lamps is not as good as the 265nm of conventional UVC-LEDs. Some technologically advanced semiconductor light source companies can also control the wavelength to 260nm-268nm, such as Photonwave's high-power UVC-LED lamp beads, with a single power of up to 400mW, which means that only a few small LED lamp beads can achieve the same effect as mercury lamps.
Data shows that the service life of traditional mercury lamps is about 1000h, the service life of UVC LED lamp beads is 8 times that of traditional mercury lamps, and the service life of UVC-LEDs using all-inorganic packaging can even reach dozens of times.
In addition, the life of a lamp is also greatly affected by the number of switches. For example, if it is turned on and off more than four times a day, the service life will be shortened; while if it is changed to long-term continuous operation, it will still have an impact, but UVC-LED will not have such a problem.
At the same time, mercury lamps usually need to be preheated for a period of time until they reach full output power, which also invisibly increases the consumption of their service life. UVC-LED can be turned on and used immediately.
Safety Risk
As the name of the ultraviolet mercury lamp shows, the equipment contains "mercury", a highly toxic substance, which is not only harmful to the human body, but also unfriendly to the ecological environment.
Due to the limitation of the principle, the ultraviolet wavelength emitted by the mercury lamp is fixed and dispersed. In addition to the main sterilization wavelength of 254nm, it will also stimulate 185nm ultraviolet rays at the same time. In this process, another harmful substance, ozone, will be produced. Although it can play a certain role in sterilization, it will also endanger human health. Therefore, people cannot be present when using ultraviolet mercury lamps, and they need to ventilate for more than half an hour after turning off the lights before entering the room.
UVC-LED does not have such concerns. It is a semiconductor light source. The process of irradiating ultraviolet rays does not produce any chemical pollution, and the sterilization band can be infinitely close to the best 260nm, which greatly improves the sterilization efficiency of UVC-LED products.
Even though both of them have the risk of ultraviolet rays causing damage to human eyes and skin, UVC-LED can be more flexibly modified into any existing system, such as air conditioners, air purifiers, water purifiers, etc., with its advantages of small size, flexible design, and easy installation. It can achieve good sterilization effects while avoiding direct ultraviolet radiation to the human body in a variety of ways.
Conclusion: In general, UVC-LED has been able to replace low-power mercury lamps in most small and medium-sized scenes. As technology develops and UVC-LED reaches higher light power, it will gradually be used in large scenes