Mercury lamps contain an inner quartz arc tube surrounded by an outer borosilicate glass envelope, with nitrogen gas in between for insulation. The arc tube holds mercury and argon gas and has electrodes coated in materials that emit electrons when heated. When voltage is applied, an initial argon arc forms between a starting electrode and main electrode, heating the mercury vapor until the main arc ignites. It takes 5-7 minutes for the mercury to fully vaporize and for the lamp to reach operational stability. Mercury lamps are available with different initial lumen ratings and have a lifetime of around 24,000 hours.
Mercury lamps contain an inner quartz arc tube surrounded by an outer borosilicate glass envelope, with nitrogen gas in between for insulation. The arc tube holds mercury and argon gas and has electrodes coated in materials that emit electrons when heated. When voltage is applied, an initial argon arc forms between a starting electrode and main electrode, heating the mercury vapor until the main arc ignites. It takes 5-7 minutes for the mercury to fully vaporize and for the lamp to reach operational stability. Mercury lamps are available with different initial lumen ratings and have a lifetime of around 24,000 hours.
Mercury lamps contain an inner quartz arc tube surrounded by an outer borosilicate glass envelope, with nitrogen gas in between for insulation. The arc tube holds mercury and argon gas and has electrodes coated in materials that emit electrons when heated. When voltage is applied, an initial argon arc forms between a starting electrode and main electrode, heating the mercury vapor until the main arc ignites. It takes 5-7 minutes for the mercury to fully vaporize and for the lamp to reach operational stability. Mercury lamps are available with different initial lumen ratings and have a lifetime of around 24,000 hours.
Mercury lamps contain an inner quartz arc tube surrounded by an outer borosilicate glass envelope, with nitrogen gas in between for insulation. The arc tube holds mercury and argon gas and has electrodes coated in materials that emit electrons when heated. When voltage is applied, an initial argon arc forms between a starting electrode and main electrode, heating the mercury vapor until the main arc ignites. It takes 5-7 minutes for the mercury to fully vaporize and for the lamp to reach operational stability. Mercury lamps are available with different initial lumen ratings and have a lifetime of around 24,000 hours.
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Mercury Lamps
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In case of fluorescent lamp the mercury vapor pressure is
maintained at lower level such that 60% of the total input energy gets converted into 253.7 nm single line. Again transition of the electrons requires least amount of input energy from a colliding electron. As pressure increases the chance of multiple collisions gets increased.
A schematic diagram of mercury lamp is shown below. This lamp
is containing an inner quartz arc tube and outer borosilicate glass envelope. The quartz tube is able to withstand arc temperature 1300 K, whereas the outer tube withstands only 700 K.
Between two tubes nitrogen gas is used
to be filled to provide thermal insulation. This insulation is for to
protect the metal parts from oxidation due to higher arc
temperature. The arc tube contains the mercury and argon gas. Its operational function is same as the fluorescent lamp. Two main electrodes and a starting electrode are inside the arc tube. Each main electrode holds a tungsten rod and upon which a double layer of coiled tungsten wire is wound. Basically the electrodes are dipped into a mixture of thorium, calcium and barium carbonates. They are heated to convert these compounds into oxides after dipping. Thus they get thermally and chemically stable to produce electrons. The electrodes are connected through a quartz tube by molybdenum foil leads.
Just when the main supply voltage is applied to the mercury
lamp, this voltage comes first across the starting electrode and the adjacent main electrode as well as across two electrodes. As the voltage presents across this stating electrode and the adjacent electrode a local argon arc is created, but the current gets limited by using a starting resistor. This initial arc heats the mercury vapor and this mercury vapor helps to strike the main arc soon. But the resistance for the main arc current control resistor is somewhat less than the resistance of the resistor used in the initial arc current control purpose. For this reason initial arc stops and main arc continues to operate. It takes 5 to 7 minutes to make all of the mercury to be vaporized completely. The lamp gets its state of its operational stability. There are five lamps with phosphor coating to provide improved color performance. As the wattage increases the initial lumen ratings for the phosphor coated lamps get available with 4200, 8600, 12100, 22500 and 63000. The life of mercury lamp is 24000 hours. Mercury Lamp
