Use
Radio and television receivers used them from about 1947 to 1975 to provide up to a few hundred volts of plate voltage. Vacuum tube rectifiers had efficiencies of only 60% compared to the 85% of selenium rectifiers, partially because vacuum tube rectifiers required heating. Selenium rectifiers have no warm-up time unlike high vacuum rectifiers. Selenium rectifiers were also cheaper and simpler to specify and install than vacuum tubes. However they were later replaced by silicon diodes with high efficiencies (close to 100% at high voltages). Selenium rectifiers had the capability to act as current limiters which can temporarily protect the rectifier during a short circuit and provide stable current for charging batteries.
Read more about this topic: Selenium Rectifier
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