A metal halide lamp or a multi vapor lamp contains a mixture of several gaseous components including mercury and some metal halides. Let us discuss more details on these lamps and see if there is any difference between metal halide and multi vapor lamps.
CONTENTS
1. What is Metal Halide
2. What is Multi Vapor
3. Difference Between Metal Halide and Multi Vapor
What is Metal Halide?
Metal halide lamps are a form of the light source that creates light via passing an electric arc through a gaseous mixture of mercury vapor and vapor of some metal halides. Most of the times, the metal halides are compounds containing bromine and iodine as the halide component. Moreover, the most common compound is sodium iodide. These lamps are similar to mercury vapor lamps in several ways, but these lamps contain more gaseous components along with mercury vapor.
Figure 01: A UV Blocked Metal Halide Lamp
The electric arc creates inside a quartz arc tube, and it contains the gases and the arc. This tube increases the efficiency of the lamp and also improves the color rendition. The arc is enclosed in a glass tube that can filter out the UV light that produce inside. The operating pressure for these lamps is around 4-20 atm. More importantly, these lamps require a warm-up period (several minutes) until it reaches the full output of light.
These lamps are very useful in both indoor and outdoor applications. Therefore, these are particularly suitable for commercial and industrial purposes. The application areas include roads, tunnels, streets, sports complexes, car parks, etc. The advantages and disadvantages of these lamps are listed in the table below.
What is Multi Vapor?
The name multi vapor lamp is a synonym for metal halide lamps. The name derives because these lamps contain several vapors of metal halides along with mercury vapor.
What is the Difference Between Metal Halide and Multi Vapor?
- There is no difference between metal halide and multi vapor lamps because both names describe the same form of lamp.
- Metal halide or multi vapor lamps are a form of the light source that creates light via passing an electric arc through a gaseous mixture of mercury vapor and vapor of some metal halides.
Reference:
1. “Metal Halide Lighting.” Alabama Power. Available here
2. “Metal-Halide Lamp.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 9 July 2018. Available here
Image Courtesy:
1.’Closeup Metal Halide Lamp’By Dave H.Ozguy89 – Own work, (Public Domain) via Commons Wikimedia