kids encyclopedia robot

Sodium vapor lamp facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts

A sodium vapor lamp is a special type of light bulb. It creates light by sending electricity through a gas that contains sodium metal. You often see these lamps used as streetlights because they are very bright and efficient.

Types of Sodium Lamps

There are two main kinds of sodium vapor lamps:

  • Low-pressure sodium (LPS) lamps: These lamps produce a very strong yellow-orange light. They are great for places where seeing true colors isn't important, like some highways or industrial areas. This is because their light is almost one single color.
  • High-pressure sodium (HPS) lamps: These lamps give off a broader range of colors, often appearing orange or pinkish-white. This allows people to see different colors more easily than with LPS lamps. HPS lamps are commonly used for street lighting in cities and towns.

How Sodium Lamps Work

Sodium vapor lamps work by heating up sodium metal inside a special tube. When electricity passes through the tube, it makes the sodium turn into a gas. This gas then glows, producing the bright light we see. The color of the light depends on the pressure of the gas inside the lamp.

Safety and Disposal

Sodium vapor lamps contain a small amount of sodium metal and sometimes mercury. Because of these materials, it's important to dispose of old sodium vapor lamps properly. They should not be thrown in regular trash. Instead, they need to be recycled or taken to special collection points to prevent harm to the environment.

Related pages

Images for kids

  • A High Pressure Sodium Light in Toronto

    A high-pressure sodium street light in Toronto

  • Sodium-glow

    A high-pressure sodium-vapor lamp

  • LPS Lamp 35W

    An unlit 35 W LPS/SOX lamp

  • LPS lamp warm-up

    Warm-up phases of a LPS lamp. The faint pink light of the Penning mixture is gradually replaced by the bright monochromatic orange light of the metallic sodium vapor.

  • LPS Lamp 35W running

    A running 35 W LPS/SOX lamp

  • Red and black cars under low pressure sodium lamps

    Two Honda Fits under low-pressure sodium lamps. Both appear black, even though the car on the left is bright red, while the car on the right is actually black.

  • SON-T-Master-600W

    High-pressure sodium lamp in operation

  • Spectrum-hp-sodium

    Spectrum of high-pressure sodium lamp. The yellow-red band on the left is the atomic sodium D-line emission; the turquoise line is a sodium line that is otherwise quite weak in a low pressure discharge, but becomes intense in a high-pressure discharge. Most of the other green, blue, and violet lines arise from mercury.

  • High Pressure Sodium Lamp Spectrum

    Diagram showing the spectral output of a typical high-pressure sodium (HPS) lamp.

  • HPS-lamps

    Office building illuminated by high-pressure sodium lamps.

  • SON-T Master 600W

    High-pressure sodium lamp Philips SON-T Master 600 W

  • 2014-10-31 17 48 17 Recently activated sodium vapor street light along Terrace Boulevard in Ewing, New Jersey

    Sodium vapor street light

  • 2014-10-31 23 30 00 Sodium vapor street light at night along Terrace Boulevard in Ewing, New Jersey

    Closeup after dark

See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Lámpara de vapor de sodio para niños

kids search engine
All content from Kiddle encyclopedia articles (including the article images and facts) can be freely used under Attribution-ShareAlike license, unless stated otherwise. Cite this article:
Sodium vapor lamp Facts for Kids. Kiddle Encyclopedia.