Through mutual friendly negotiations and unremittingefforts, on January 14, 2010,Shanghai Y&L Lighting Co., LTD. (Y&L) and VENTURE LIGHTINGINTERNATIONAL, INC. (VLI) jointly signed an agreement that VLI sells toY&L certain equipment to manufacture and sell solid mercury amalgams withinthe country of People’s Republic of China. The success of this project willbring a big leap to the solid mercury production technology of the lighting industryof China.

The current worldwide trend is to phaseout incandescent lamps and popularise CFLs. However, CFLs need mercury and thedoses are strictly controlled and limited in western countries, as mercury,especially the liquid mercury, is a big threat to our environment. Now thisproject can control the doses precisely. With APL’s patent technologies Y&Lwill manufacture solid mercury amalgams (to replace liquid mercury) of accuratedoses, which conform to the regulations of the western development countries,and decrease environmental pollution from the very beginning during production.

This project invites the most advancedtechnologies and equipments of solid mercury amalgams production from APL, withan annual output as high as 2 billions pieces. The advanced production lines,ICP and FTIR analysis systems will ensure the quality and specific amount ofmercury in each amalgam. And the automatic monitoring control system and thewaste collection system guarantee the production environment and the airemission of mercury meeting the stringent requirements set by regulatoryagencies.

Through this project Y&L will becapable of producing amalgams of controlled mass in the range of less than0.1mg to as much as 25mg, with a tolerance of +/-0.1mg, including ZnHg, SnHg,ZnSnHg and BiInHg. With such a wide range of mass sizes available for lowpressure fluorescent lamps, lamp manufacturers worldwide are able to choose thepellets that are best for their specific fluorescent lamp products. It is onlythrough the use of amalgams that the technical barriers of mercury amount offluorescent lamps set by western countries can be met.

Now this project is going very well, asplanned. The new plant will get ready in March 2011, welcoming the new equipmentswhich are to arrive in April. In July the mass production will kick off. Thiswill not only improve the mercury production technologies in China, but alsohelp Chinese fluorescent lamp manufacturers to get amalgams with lower cost buthigher quality with more precise sizes, which, in turn, improve the quality ofthe lamps and pave the way for manufacturers to export to western markets, andmore important, reduce environment pollution.

All in all, this project will berequired with both social and commercial benefits. Amalgam, as an electronicmaterial, will surely play vital role in the lighting industry.