Eden Park Illumination Awarded $1 Million Grant to Commercialize New Microplasma Ultra-violet Water Disinfection Technology from the US Department of Energy

CHAMPAIGN, Ill., March 26, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Eden Park Illumination has been awarded a $1 million grant from the US DOE to commercialize microplasma Ultra-violet lighting tiles for water purification and sterilization. Eden Park will develop and demonstrate large scale microplasma/microcavity UV flat lamps (in the range of UVB - UVC) having areas up to one square foot for water purification and disinfection.

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The grant's principle investigator, Dr. Sung-Jin Park, one of the Founders of Eden Park Illumination, commented, "This grant provides the resources to optimize UV microplasma technology in such a way to make it commercially viable. This technology will bring a range of new products to the water industry that will provide mercury free, energy efficient, low maintenance and very cost effective operation that can augment or replace conventional mercury-based UV technologies."

The grants objective will be to demonstrate large scale products for thin microplasma UV flat lighting systems having a radiating area up to one square foot (900 cm²) at a UV conversion efficiency greater than 20%. A scaled production methodology will be put in place and an optimized power delivering system will be designed and developed according to the scale of each size class of microplasma lamps. Also, lamps with other emitters (molecular gas emitters or UV conversion phosphors) capable of generating photons in various UV wavelength ranges (172 – 310 nm) will be developed to provide a broad range of UV applications for water treatment.

The Advantages of Microplasma UV Technology
This new UV water disinfection technology offers many advantages over conventional mercury-based UV light sources. Microplasma lamps have a more adaptive planar form factor and produce no negative impact of mercury on the environment.  Conventional UV lamps also have a short working life span defined in hundreds to thousands of hours as compared to tens of thousands of hours for UV microplasma lamps. Current mercury based cylindrical shaped lamps are not conducive to the uniform treatment of water in compact (small volume) installations. Conventional UV lamps are also susceptible to temperature variations, and above (or below) the optimum temperature range the UV output is reduced. Microplasma UV technology is not sensitive to temperature variation.

About Eden Park Illumination Inc.
Eden Park Illumination, Inc. advances the evolution of light and transforms the way light is applied through the cutting-edge development and innovation of Microplasma Lighting, a flat, ultra-thin, environmentally responsible light source that combines energy efficiency and long lifetime. Eden Park Illumination is an innovative lighting technology company benefiting from a rich heritage through its affiliation with the Laboratory of Optical Physics and Engineering at the University of Illinois and holds a prominent global patent portfolio. The company is committed to developing earth-friendly products and supports actions and decisions that positively impact the sustainability of the environment. The Company's headquarters and R&D facility are located in Champaign, Illinois, USA. More information is available at www.edenpark.com.

SOURCE Eden Park Illumination, Inc.