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Project

EU CIP Eco-innovation Project: Ecolights - Development and Market Deployment of Eco-lighting Products

Unit(s) of assessment: Architecture, Built Environment and Planning

Research theme: Sustainable Futures

School: School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment

Overview

Ecolights Logo

This project is supported by the European Commission CIP Eco-innovation programme, with total funding 1,100,000 Euros including the grant 550,000 Euros from the European Commission (Grant Number Eco/11/N304409). In collaboration with Ona, a manufacturer of lighting products in Spain, the Advanced Design and Manufacturing Engineering Centre at NTU developed a novel LED lighting product, and within this Ecolights project, the product has been further developed, manufactured and deployed in the European marked.

The Ecolights product has the following major sustainable features:

  • Recycled PET material will be used in the housing of the product, which represents 80% of the materials used in the product. Using recycled PET presents considerable advantages, such as saving the energy / scarce resources required to produce the raw material from scratch and reducing the waste that may otherwise go to landfill, with possible negative consequences in terms of soil pollution. Recycled PET material has never before been used in the technical lighting application, and hence the outcome of this research will be a novel contribution to knowledge in this area.
  • LEDs will be used as lighting sources, which are the most efficient in terms of light output over a period of time. Lighting controls with dimmers, light / motion sensors and timers will be specially developed in order to achieve the exact light quantity / quality required by the user, thus avoiding waste of light and, therefore, waste of energy.
  • Eco-efficient electronic / electric components, such as electronic drivers, will be developed / implemented to comply with RoHS (regarding use of toxic compounds) regulations and rank high in the energy star energy-based eco-label (regarding energy-efficiency).
  • In comparison with existing products that have similar functions, the new lighting product is more efficient in lighting output performance, and has less environmental impact.

People

Professor Daizhong Su is Professor of Design Engineering and Head of the Advanced Design and Manufacturing Engineering Centre. As a principal investigator or co-investigator, Professor Su successfully conducted/conducts a number of collaborative research projects supported by the European Commission, research councils, governmental departments, regional development agencies, industries, and other external funding bodies.

Professor Su has collaborated with a range of national and international organisations, including well recognised research institutions such as Fraunhofer and Wuppertal Institute; large industrial companies such as Philips Lighting, Boots, Ecover, and Chemineer; prestigious institutes/universities in China such as the State Key Laboratory of Mechanical Transmission, Harbin Institute of Technology, and Chongqing Academy of Science and Technology.

Making a Difference

Supported by the EU CIP Eco-innovation program, this project aims to support and facilitate the manufacture, certification and commercialization of the eco-lighting product in targeted EU markets by achieving the following:

  • The eco-lighting products will be tested, certified and refined in order to ensure the quality required in the new EU markets, to reduce their environmental impact, and to prepare them for clean manufacturing.
  • Expansion of the eco-lighting products range to new EU markets by developing new commercialization channels and infrastructures in order to reach potential Swedish consumers.
  • A web-based advanced services will be developed to support commercialization and after-sales services to customers. These services will also provide customer environmental information about their lighting products and online support to encourage proper use, maintenance and disposal for recycling and remanufacturing of parts and components of the product.

Collaboration

EU CIP Ecolight project consortium members:

  • Ona (Spain)
  • aaxsus (Sweden)
  • Mosmedios (Spain)

Related staff

Publications

  • Jose Casamayor, Daizhong Su and Zhongming Ren, 'A comparative life cycle assessment of LED lighting products'. Lighting Research and Technology. Article first published online: May 12, 2017. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1477153517708597. Publisher: Sage
  • Daizhong Su, Jose Casamayor and Xuemin Xu, 2015, ‘Utilisation of a toolbox for computer aided development of LED lighting products’, International Journal of Mechanical and Production Engineering (IJMPE), volume 3, issue 4, pp56-61
  • Casamayor, J., Su, D. and Sarshar, M., 'Extending lifespan of LED Lighting Products', journal ‘Architectural Engineering and Design Management’, Talor & Francis, vol. 11, issue 2, March 2015, pp105-122
  • Casamayor, J.L. and Su, D., ‘Integration of eco-design tools into the development of eco-lighting products’, Journal of Cleaner Production, 47 (2013), pp. 32-42, Elsevier
  • Jose Casamayor and Daizhong Su, 2011, ‘Environmental impact assessment of lighting product’, Key Engineering Materials. vol 486 (2011), Trans Tech Publications, pp. 171-174.