Lume

Lume is a short term for the luminous phosphorescent glowing solution applied on watch dials. There are some people who "relume" watches, or replace faded lume. Formerly, lume consisted mostly of radium; however, radium is radioactive and has been mostly replaced on new watches by less bright, but less toxic compounds.

For other uses, see Lume (disambiguation).
Lume applied on a diver's watch to make it readable in low light conditions.

Common pigments used in lume include the phosphorescent pigments zinc sulfide and strontium aluminate. Use of zinc sulfide for safety related products dates back to the 1930s. However, the development of strontium oxide aluminate, with a luminance approximately 10 times greater than zinc sulfide, has relegated most zinc sulfide based products to the novelty category. Strontium oxide aluminate based pigments are now used in exit signs, pathway marking, and other safety related signage.

Strontium aluminate based afterglow pigments are marketed under brandnames like Super-LumiNova,[1][2] Watchlume Co,[3] NoctiLumina,[4] and Glow in the Dark (Phosphorescent) Technologies.[5]

References
  1. RC TRITEC Super-LumiNova
  2. Nemoto & Co., Ltd LumiNova Archived 2008-05-17 at the Wayback Machine
  3. watchlume's website
  4. NoctiLumina company website
  5. Glow in the Dark (Phosphorescent) Technologies Archived 2008-09-15 at the Wayback Machine
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.