BACTERIA KILLER

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 51, Issue 3132, 17 June 1942, Page 8

BACTERIA KILLER

AMAZING NEW PAINT DEVELOPMENT IN BRITAIN NOW *USED IN THE BLACKOUT A paint that glows in the dark is being used for showing up objects in London’s blackout, and it foreshadows gormless houses in the future. To “ activate” the paint, ultra-vio-let rays generated by specially filtered filament lamps are thrown upon it, when the object painted gives out a bluish glow and becomes visible in the dark. The system is being exnerimented with by London’s Underground system, and, in the entrances to four stations in London’s West End, stairrisers, bull’s-eye signs and indication strips have been treated, and further tests are being carried out at a trol-ley-bus depot where a track will be

treated to guide the trolley-buses into the depot. * The principle of “fluorescence,” or the generation of light by any substance under ultra-violet rays, was discovered by an Englishman, Sir John Herschel, 100 years ago. Wide Use After The War? Its war-time application may lead to its extensive use in painting the walls of rooms with fluorescent paint which, when gives off light approximately three times more effective than filament lighting. It can be so arranged that the wave-length of the exciting light not only causes the paint to fluoresce but kills off bacteria in the atmosphere.

If the present blackout experiments prove successful, the fluorescent paint will be made use of in a variety of ways; for example, by illuminating the platform steps of buses, edges of railway station platforms, .and tramway junctions. Already many private business-houses hava installed the system for lighting entrance halls where the street doors have to be opened in the blackout. ,z