South Korea's largest chemical company, LG Chemical, has developed an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panel that has light efficacy and lifespan almost equivalent to LED lighting. In particular, the new panels have luminous efficacy of 100 lumens per watt and a life of 40000 hours, compared to traditional LED lights that offer 100 lumens per watt and 50000 hours, or fluorescent panels that clock in at 100 lumens per watt and 20000 hours.
Until now, OLED panels have only been able to achieve an efficacy of 60 lumens per watt. This metric is an industry standard for comparing the efficiency of light bulbs or lamps to see which produces more light for less power.
Although the new OLED panel is one-tenth the thickness and around one-fifth the weight of an LED panel, it is approximately 10 times costlier. However, LG Chemical is hopeful that the prices will come down.
"We think the significance is in being able to bring the efficacy up to LED standards. We expect unit costs to ultimately decrease by five-fold or more through ongoing developments", the company said.
LG Chemical, which is a part of the LG group, entered the OLED lighting panel business back in 2008, but began mass production in 2010.
The new panels are scheduled to be launched in November this year, and the company is planning to market them to North America and Europe. In addition, the company is also targeting the automotive sector, and is currently developing OLED panels for rear lamps.