Light Polymers’ VP of Grow Products, Sandor Schoichet, has been featured in Maximum Yield magazine as a guest contributor, talking about Light Polymers’ GrowBlade product line and lyotropic materials technology. Light Polymers’ GrowBlade is a horticultural lighting product that provides the optimum light spectrum for plant growth. The GrowBlade takes advantage of Light Polymers’ groundbreaking photonic light-conversion films created with lyotropic materials technology. The self-aligning lyotropic materials enable photonic films that are more efficient than currently manufactured competitors while being less costly to manufacture.
Here is an excerpt from the article:
“Instead of a direct coating on each, blue light from multiple uncoated LEDs can be down-converted by a remote photonic film. Current down-conversion film technology employs silicon resin, using two chemical components combined with phosphor admixtures. These films are not very efficient at emitting the desired spectra (light wavelengths) and emit heat due to index-matching losses. The creation of these films is a time-consuming process, lowering manufacturing yields and increasing cost for lighting fixtures. They also require toxic chemicals and special tools to create.
A new generation of photonic films addresses these problems. Using lyotropic materials, these films are very dense – providing better down-conversion efficiency – and much more stable stable – meaning the spectra emitted will not degrade over time. Improved chemistry also lowers manufacturing costs by speeding up the manufacturing process and eliminating the use of surfactants and toxic chemicals. Unique formulations of the lyotropic chemistry provide control of the refractive index of the film to create less waste heat. The manufacturing process is easy to scale, leading to substantial economic efficiencies in manufacturing LED lighting compared to traditional LED fixtures.”
Available publicly in Q1 2018, limited quantities of the GrowBlade will be made available in Q4 2017 for BETA programs with vertical farms and other grow operations employing artificial light.
