Döbereiner's lamp, also called a "tinderbox" ("Feuerzeug"), is a lighter invented in 1823 by the German chemist Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner. The lighter is based on the Fürstenberger lighter (invented in Basel in 1780; in which hydrogen gas is ignited by an electrostatically generated spark). Döbereiner's lamp was in production until ca. 1880. In the jar, similar to the Kipp's apparatus, zinc metal reacts with dilute sulfuric acid to produce hydrogen gas. When a valve is opened, a jet of hydrogen is released onto a platinum sponge. The sponge catalyzes a reaction with atmospheric oxygen, which heats the catalyst and ignites the hydrogen, producing a gentle flame.
- a. glass cylinder
- b. open bottle
- c. wire
- d. zinc
- e. stopcock
- f. nozzle
- g. platinum sponge
The Döbereiner's lamp is considered as the first commercial application of heterogeneous catalysis and was commercialized for lighting fires and pipes. The world's largest manufacturer of these lighters was Heinrich Gottfried Piegler from Schleiz in Thuringia (Germany). It is said that in the 1820s over a million of the "tinderboxes" were sold.
In Great Britain examples of the lighter are exhibited in the Science Museum in London, in Germany in the Deutsches Museum, the old pharmacy at Heidelberg Castle, the Kulturhistorisches Museum Schloss Merseburg, the Municipal Museum in Braunschweig, the Goethe National Museum in Weimar, the Museum Gunnar-Wester-Haus in Schweinfurt, the Astronomisch-Physikalisches Kabinett Kassel, the Regional Museum Bad Lobenstein, the Municipal Museum Zeulenroda, the Stadtmuseum Gera, the Mineralogical Collection in Jena and at the Museum Bayerisches Vogtland in Hof.
See also
References
- Reschetilowski, Wladimir (2015). Einführung in die Heterogene Katalyse. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg. p. 3. ISBN 9783662469835.
- Thomas, John M. (2017). The RSC Faraday prize lecture of 1989. Chem. Commun. Volume 53. p. 9189.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Thomas, John Meurig; John Thomas, W. (9 February 2015). Principles and Practice of Heterogeneous Catalysis. John Wiley & Sons. p. 16. ISBN 9783527314584.
Further reading
- Hoffmann, Roald (Jul–Aug 1998). "Döbereiner's Lighter". American Scientist. 86 (4): 326. doi:10.1511/1998.4.326. Archived from the original on 2016-11-07. Retrieved 2010-07-10.
- George B. Kauffman (1999). "Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner's Feuerzeug" (PDF). Platinum Metals Review. 43 (3): 122–128. doi:10.1595/003214099X433122128. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-02-07. Retrieved 2007-02-15.
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