I'm guessing I have access to about 500-1000lbs of broken/crushed pieces of VERY high quality 100% quartz - along with maybe 200-2000 unbroken tubes
32" (length) x 26" OD x 1-1.5mm wall (so 23-24" OD). They are ULTRA HIGH wattage (12-16 KW) bulbs (300-600 watts per inch) that generate pure UV
light (UV-C IIRC) and run off of high voltage (2.5-5 KV) and are meant to dry V sensitive printing ink in ~.1-.3 seconds of exposure (mercury vapor
lamps BTW).
If anyone knows of a good use of the broken/crushed pieces, I'd be interested to hear. If it could be used as filler in some refractory bricks or
some other chemistry applications like anti-burbing in distilling high concentration H2SO4 - or any other aspect.
I can't find current uses for the working bulbs bc current bulbs are usually 24" or 42-48", so they just don't use these 32-36" bulbs in currently
used printers. If anyone has use for relatively safe high output UV lights (sterilization of large volumes of air flow - or maybe as tanning beds for
the Kardashians since it seems they want to be black). I wonder if this could be used for paint or epoxy that UV cures, or maybe photo-catalytic
reactions like making H2O2 or H2SO4, H2, or many other processes (granted, I know of very few but I think there are a fair number..)Fyndium - 28-5-2021 at 21:18
Household mains is not even able to supply single of those tubes, unless it works with capacitor bank.
UVC would be great for sterilization and for photocatalytic synthesis, such as chlorination of toluene and as you mentioned, and curing, but apart
from that, it's uses are somewhat limited. Handling it would be exceedingly dangerous, as it readily destroys your eyes and skin. UVA and little UVB
is used for tanning, UVC will burn and kill you with skin cancer. Photocatalysis would also be of question, as the vessel itself acts as a radiation
shield, so you would need fiber optics and a thermowell made out of quartz to allow for efficient UVC input.Twospoons - 29-5-2021 at 02:02
Melt cast them into a thick disk and then grind a parabolic primary mirror for a telescope. The very low Tc of quartz is great for large mirrors. Even
better than a thick disk is to mould in a waffle back, to make it lighter and stiffer. rockyit98 - 29-5-2021 at 10:05
i once made fritted glass disk for filtration by sintering powdered glass. same can be done with quartz glass. ball milling to a finer powder you can
even make sintered quartz crucibles and tubes. Aloesci - 30-5-2021 at 07:17
Where i work the lab as a device which uses UV light to lure flies in before being zapped to death by an electric grid.
Another thing which comes to mind, especially with high output UV lamps is air and surface sterilizing machines.
As for the broken quartz glass.. Forbidden potato chips?
That was a joke dont eat them.Twospoons - 30-5-2021 at 14:37
Household mains is not even able to supply single of those tubes, unless it works with capacitor bank.
Any amount of current will still result in UV output. A neon sign transformer would get them going, and would supply 300-400W. That would probably net
100W or so of UV, so still useful (and bloody dangerous).
