Characterization of commercial luminescent powders

Abstract

Luminescent powders have attracted the attention of scientists, boosting properties as specific as mechanoluminescence, thermoluminescence, and photoluminescence among other characteristics. The uses of these properties have grown exponentially from recreational uses in luminescent paints, toys, plasticines, and other industry-specific uses, such as crack sensors, flaw detectors, and radiation meters in medicine. These uses have grown proportionately with their more economical and efficient manufacturing methods and processes, generating more economical fluorescent pigments. This paper characterizes and compares a low-cost luminescent pigment with those reported by different authors, its chemical composition was characterized by X-ray energy dispersion spectrometry, X-ray fluorescence, and Raman spectroscopy. Its morphology was analyzed by scanning electron microscopy, and its particle size with a laser meter its structural condition with X-ray diffraction, the powder obtained was presented as a strontium alumínate doped with divalent europium and trivalent dysprosium (Al2O4: Eu2+, Dy3+) one of the most efficient powders around persistence and luminance intensity at present. The structure of the strontium aluminate was determined by the main peaks of the diffractogram showing a monoclinic system. The elemental composition helped to determine the doping of the strontium aluminate corroborating them with the obtained with Raman spectroscopy and the scanning electron microscopy images.