# Litroenergy Micro Particles



## Lumenz (Sep 13, 2011)

Has anyone heard more about Litroenergy? I read about their illuminated micro particles nearly 4 years ago but I have not heard anything since. It seems like an exciting product if it ever comes out. 

I have seen the Forever Light Panels that run off ambient heat but they seem to be very expensive.


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## LEDAdd1ct (Sep 19, 2011)

1) Those Forever Light Panels look awesome
2) I wish I could afford them (in another life)
3) I wonder how much of that cost is profit, i.e., how expensive are they to actually produce...



With respect to Litroenergy, it looks like they are either tiny tritium spheres or something close to it. Maybe a cousin? 

From the link above:

"Winning the Grand Prize in NASA's 2007 "Create The Future" contest, [1] this fluorescing microsphere approach is a betavoltaic technology, using a radioactive gas, whose "soft" emission of electrons from the beta emitting gas cannot penetrate the glass or polymer wall of the microspheres."


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## fyrstormer (Sep 19, 2011)

How can ForeverLight panels possibly run on ambient heat? Visible light is higher-energy than heat is. Doesn't that violate the laws of thermodynamics?

Anyway, I don't see betavoltaics replacing conventional battery technology in all applications, no matter how inexpensive it might eventually become. Yes, nuclear batteries are extremely effective in running devices for decades at a time (some Russian lighthouses run on nuclear batteries and have been running unattended for so long people have forgotten where they all are), but there will never come a day when people will consider it acceptable to have to deal with a radiation leak because someone dropped a battery on a tile floor.


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## Ken_McE (Sep 19, 2011)

LEDAdd1ct said:


> With respect to Litroenergy, it looks like they are either tiny tritium spheres or something close to it. Maybe a cousin?



Problem is, all the other isotopes are scarier to have around.



> 1) Those Forever Light Panels look awesome
> 2) I wish I could afford them (in another life)


They have a thirteen dollar (Aussie dollar?) keyring. It'd be an easy way to see if it works.


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## Ken_McE (Sep 19, 2011)

Lumenz said:


> Has anyone heard more about Litroenergy? I read about their illuminated micro particles nearly 4 years ago but I have not heard anything since. It seems like an exciting product if it ever comes out.



The Litroenergy people are good at coming up with cool ideas, but don't seem able to actually make product. That they are US based, and that their product is quasi-illegal in the US may be a factor.*



> I have seen the Forever Light Panels that run off ambient heat but they seem to be very expensive.


The official explanation for how they work involves tunable "quantum electronic crystals": :shakehead

http://foreverlight.com.au/generalinformation-so_it_changes_heat_into_light_how.php


*(Reference § 30.19 Self-luminous products containing tritium, krypton-85, or promethium-147.)


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## fyrstormer (Sep 19, 2011)

Ken_McE said:


> The Litroenergy people are good at coming up with cool ideas, but don't seem able to actually make product. That they are US based, and that their product is quasi-illegal in the US may be a factor.
> 
> The official explanation for how they work involves tunable "quantum electronic crystals": :shakehead
> 
> http://foreverlight.com.au/generalinformation-so_it_changes_heat_into_light_how.php


It kinda sounds like they're saying the film is lined with tiny thermoelectric couplings that have been mechanically combined with LED emitters. Perhaps it generates tiny amounts of electricity via the _movement_ of energy from a hotter surface to a cooler one?

I'd be interested to try it, but not at the asking price.


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## LEDAdd1ct (Sep 20, 2011)

"Once the reference level is established, the light level will very slowly decrease for about 5 hours, then it will stabilise its output at that level and not get any dimmer for the rest of the night."

Also,

"General Information > How long does a panel take to learn what its new light output level should be?

If the panels have had NO reference light for:
30 mins in darkness = 0.5 sec of the reference light
1 hour in darkness = 2 sec of reference light
2 hours in darkness = 10 sec of reference light
3 months in darkness = 10 minutes of reference light"

(from their website)

Reading through the lines, they look like glorified GITD sheets! No "reference light" to me sounds like "no light to charge them up." If I take a GITD sheet and leave it in a drawer for three months, it may still be glowing, but very, very slightly. My gut feeling is that these are simply a more concentrated or more advanced version of GITD technology which is charged from light. Brighter source light----> more powerful glow. 

Good catch on that keyring, as I didn't see it before. With a keyring that both sits in a bag and perhaps rests on a table under overhead lighting between uses, it would probably function very well. 

Again, to me the primary barrier is cost. I don't suppose they have a 50% CPF discount!


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