LED lighting is the right choice for hazardous environments

Generally speaking, hazardous environments include chemical plants, power-generation plants, oil, gas, and petrochemical refineries, mines, drilling platforms, nuclear or the other hazardous plants. These places are usually used to manufacture or handle some explosive gases, contaminated liquids and flammable materials. The features of these places are humid, high dust, high vibration and extreme temperatures, which determines them need very rugged and reliable lighting systems to guarantee the security of the environments.

Over the years, LED technology has been rapidly-developing in term of light output, color options, wattage options, efficiency and manufacturing costs. With the phasing out of incandescent lamps and high-intensity discharge in many countries, which are higher power consumption, higher heat dissipation and low light output, LED lighting is becoming more and more popular. LED lighting is energy-efficient, environmentally friendly, rugged and reliable, it also have a longer lifespan about 30000 hours. All of these features make it become the right choice for hazardous environments.

Let’s talk about the reason why LED lighting is the right choice for hazardous environments.

First of all, LED lights have great features of dustproof, waterproof and shockproof, which guarantee the lights can withstand severe weather conditions, corrosive atmospheres, excessive moisture of dust and high ambient temperatures. Compared with conventional lights such as incandescent lights and fluorescent lamps, which is made of glass and easily broken, LED lights are resistant to shock, vibration and corrosion, and can be used in hazardous environments for a long time despite some special damage.

The second, hazardous environments are usually located in remote areas and are inaccessible, and hence, it is very unwise to maintain or replace the lighting systems regularly. What’s more, the maintenance in hazardous environments can be dangerous. However, LED lighting can solve the problem easily. LED lights are well known for great performance and have a long lifespan. The approach not only reduces maintenance and labor replacement costs, but also improves the security of hazardous environments.

The third, LED lighting do not produce any harmful UV or IR radiation, which will not cause other harmful effects on high-risk environments. According to some high-risk work environment, there must be a continuous supply of electricity; otherwise it is likely to cause an accident. So it becomes very important that the workplaces cannot afford to be without lighting for even a second. At the same time, LED lighting is easily to switch on to be fully high intensity, but generate less heat than conventional lights.

It is worth noting that LED lights designed to be used in hazardous environments must comply with standards and requirements needed in such areas. It must be checked to ensure that a hotspot or a spark does not lead to fire, or an internal ignition will escape from the fixture of the housing. If a spark or s hotspot appears in some environments of explosive gases or liquids or flammable materials, the consequences are very serious. Therefore, if LED lights are used to apply in hazardous environments, the manufacturing and testing standards for these LED luminaries are controlled strictly.