Light is a necessity at night when the sun is shining on the other side of the world. During normal days, we get our lights from fluorescent tubes or the newer CFL bulbs that consume less power. This light sources are powered by our electric company. But during emergency cases, the infrastructure that delivers electricity from the plant to our homes and offices might go down leaving us in the darkness. For these cases, we often resort to emergency lights that provides us with light for a limited time period.
The most common emergency lights are the rechargeable types that uses a battery to store a certain amount of electricity. This can then be used during outages for lighting or other purposes. The problem with devices that use a battery is the lifespan of the battery and whether it contains enough electricity. A battery leaks electricity all the time and it needs to be topped up all the time to maintain its full charge. This in turn slowly shortens the life span of the battery. This can lead to the emergency device to fail or have a shorter service time during the actual emergency; this is more apparent in older devices.
The Cyalume chemical light sticks do not rely on electricity in producing light, instead it uses a chemical reaction that provides light as a byproduct. Since it does not rely on electricity, it is also immune to the problems that afflicts electrical emergency lights. Cyalume light sticks can be stored for extended periods without any worries of failure; low intensity sticks can last up to four years while high intensity sticks can last for one. Usage is also fairly simple as you would only need to snap and shake the stick to start the mixing of the chemicals, it would then start to glow.
The number of applications that the Cyalume chemical light sticks can be used for is virtually limitless. Aside from emergency lighting in buildings in case the power goes out, it can also be used as markers for rescue operations. The glow of these sticks can be seen a mile away at night, making it a good addition to flares or smoke signals in a vessel, especially in seafaring vessels because it is waterproof. Aside from its practical uses, it can also be used at parties as accent lights. The wide variety of colors makes it a fun and durable light source for young people.
The price of each light stick might be relatively high considering that it can only be used once. But since emergencies are few and far in between, it might actually be cheaper to use these sticks instead of rechargeable lights that are much more expensive and slowly deteriorates over time. Buying in bulk should also lessen the cost; even down to almost half at the highest quantity.
