Sustainable lighting: towards the recycling and eco-conception of very low energy consumption LED based lighting (Invited Paper)

The capability of lighting is essential for modern society with an exponential increase of the lighting energy consumption versus the GPD per capita. White Light Emitting Device (LED) based on solid state lighting allows for a tremendous energy saving typically around of 70% as to compared with incandescent lighting and therefore constitutes a real breakthrough in terms of low consumption technology. The life span analysis is also very positive for LEDs. The remaining issue lies in the end life of the component and recycling. We will show during this presentation based on a comprehensive approach developed within a 4 years R&D research project called RECYLED, how this issue can be solved by considering alternative disassembling technique based on energy pulse fragmentation. The later technology applied to LED bulbs allows for a recycling rate of more than 80% far above the commonly used crushing technology in recycling. The end of the presentation will be devoted to an even more eco-friendly approach based on ZnO as a rare-earth free white emission and potentially easy soluble LED material.