Plastic fluorescent tubes?

[jtr1962]

After reading the thread about the LED worklight I was wondering if there is any technical reason why we can't make fluorescent tubes out of plastic instead of glass. There are UV resistant plastics so that's not the problem. Cost likely isn't the problem as plastics would be easier to mold and probably cheaper. Heat likely wouldn't be a problem either-some plastics like Teflon are usable at 450°F, well above what even an enclosed tube reaches.

Unbreakable plastic tubes would have lots of advantages, especially in industrial environments or around children. I'm wondering why they haven't been made.

[brickbat]

I don't know of any plastics that provide a true hermetic seal. That is, on a molecular level, air will diffuse into the lamp over time.

[The_LED_Museum]

I was just going to say that. No plastics that I know of could maintain very low pressures (near-vaccume) in a tube or bulb without a very slow influx of atmospheric gases.

[evanlocc]

Well, i would say yes there are plastic tubes light but not in fluorescent manner. Use of a different light source (eg.LED) base could be or already in production.

[jtr1962]

Not being hermetically sealable certainly give a reason as to why nobody has made plastic fluorescent tubes. Yes, you can make plastic LED-based light tubes, and in a manner of speaking these are "fluorescent" because white LEDs are fluorescent light sources, but that's not quite what I had in mind. I meant the usual mercury-vapor based tubes.