# Could you make a lightbulb out of plastic?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-make-a-lightbulb-out-of-plastic/270828>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 24, 2004, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-make-a-lightbulb-out-of-plastic/270828 "2004-10-24T00:43:43Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![SmackFu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)\
**Post date:** [October 24, 2004, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-make-a-lightbulb-out-of-plastic/270828/1 "2004-10-24T00:43:43Z")

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Plastic can replace glass in a lot of places. Why not lightbulbs, especially flourescents?

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**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\
**Post date:** [October 24, 2004, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-make-a-lightbulb-out-of-plastic/270828/2 "2004-10-24T01:04:32Z")

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A Fluorescent bulb has a pretty good vacuum inside, [around 0.15 mm of mercury](http://members.misty.com/don/oddbulb.html), so a thin plastic tube would probably collapse over time. You’d also have problems with the plastic outgassing molecules of monomer into the cavity, where they’d react with the mercury vapor.  
A plastic, argon filled, incandescent lamp might last a while, if you made the bulb big enough to dissipate heat without melting.

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**Author:** ![chukhung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e79b87/32.png) [@chukhung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chukhung)\
**Post date:** [October 24, 2004, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-make-a-lightbulb-out-of-plastic/270828/3 "2004-10-24T01:36:38Z")

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> [@SmackFu](#):
>
> Plastic can replace glass in a lot of places. Why not lightbulbs, especially flourescents?

Instead of fluorescents, why not use high intensity LEDs? From this [page](http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/9714012.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp)

> [@](#):
>
> But what if you could buy a bulb that will last for 10 years, use about a tenth of the electricity and cost no more than three times that of a standard bulb? And it can bounce.
> 
> Jack Goeken thinks he has created just such a superbulb, and it’s scheduled to hit the market this year with the backing of bulb giant Westinghouse Lighting Corp.  
> …  
> At Goeken’s company – PolyBrite International Inc. – inventors discovered a way to take the light from a single LED and disperse it through a plastic ribbon to enhance the light’s effect. After several years of work, Carl Scianna, PolyBrite’s president, has packaged LEDs along with the electronics that power them in a **plastic bulb-shaped product.**
> 
> [Bolding added]