Bunsen burner

“ A high pressure is necessary for the gas in order to prevent its burning back. The ordinary use of the Bunsen burner is to develop heat, and to that end a complete combustion, of course, as desired. But, with an immediately complete combustion, there is little light. The yellow light of candles and gas jets is due to free particles of carbon at a red heat, but not yet combined with oxygen, or, as we commonly say, consumed. On the appearance of acetylene gas, inventors at once sought to apply the principle of the Bunsen burner with such modifications as would produce this result. ”

“ If, as is suggested, the blue parts of an ordinary luminous flame are the relics of the two cones of a Bunsen flame, the chemistry of a Bunsen flame may be appropriately considered first. What happens chemically when a hydrocarbon is burned in a Bunsen burner? The air sent in with the gas is insufficient for complete 473 combustion so that the inner cone of the flame may be considered as air burning in an excess of coal gas. What will be the products of this combustion? ”

“ If the hot-tube system of ignition be employed, the Bunsen burner is ignited, care being taken that the flame emerging from the tube is blue in color. If necessary the admission of air to the burner is regulated by the usual adjusting-sleeve. A white or smoky flame indicates an insufficient supply of air to the burner. ”

“ The burner employed resembles the ordinary Bunsen burner with incandescent mantle, and the rate of consumption of gas is 27.5 cub. in. per hour per candle. A reducing valve is used for supplying the gas to the burner at constant pressure. The burners can be left unattended for considerable periods. The system was first adopted in France, where it is installed at eight lighthouses, among others the Ar’men Rock light, and has been extended to other parts of the world including several stations in Scotland and England. The mantles used in France are of 35 mm. diameter. ”

“ An Argand or fish-tail burner should also be used instead of rings pierced for so many separate jets, and where practicable, the Bunsen-burner should be employed, as the mixture of common air with the gas not only prevents the formation of soot, but also intensifies the heat.”
STRABIS′MUS. Syn. Squinting. This need not be described. When one eye only is affected, an excellent plan is to blindfold the sound eye during several hours each day, until the affection be removed. ”

“ Again, if the flame of a Bunsen burner be fed through the air-ports not with air but with some neutral gas such as nitrogen, carbon dioxide or steam, the dilution of the burning gas and the hydrocarbon within it becomes so great that the temperature of separation is not attained, no carbon is separated and the flame consists of a single blue shell. ”

“ Again, no proportions are indicated; the number, size, and position of the air holes, except that they enter the cylinder above the gas, are left at large; and, if the plaintiffs' theory is the true one, the public are told little more than to try experiments until they find a burner that works. The plaintiffs say that a burner with a distance of four fifths of an inch or over between gas and discharge orifice is a Bunsen burner, and that, for the burner to be effective for illuminating purposes, the distance should be only a few millimeters. ”

“ The gas escaping from the Bunsen burner is never sufficiently aërated to burn completely. Otherwise there would (in general) be explosions in the tube F. A part of this air is supplied at the mouth of the boiler B, Fig. 14, and the amount available here will depend on the velocity of the jet F. Hence it does not follow that a high-pressure burner like that in Fig. 11 will supply a proportionate amount of heat, since its jet suction is not intense and the combustion within the boiler is incomplete. ”

“ If a platinum wire be heated in the flame of the Bunsen burner until all the sodium indications have disappeared, it suffices to remove the wire, and, without allowing it to come into contact with anything, to leave it exposed to the air for a few minutes, to cause it again to give the characteristic yellow colour when again plunged into the flame. ”

“ Perhaps the best known of the contrivances which the world owes to him is the "Bunsen burner" which he devised in 1855 when a simple means of burning ordinary coal gas with a hot smokeless flame was required for the new laboratory at Heidelberg. Other appliances invented by him were the ice-calorimeter (1870) , the vapour calorimeter (1887) , and the filter pump (1868) , which was worked out in the course of a research on the separation of the platinum metals. ”

“ It is only quite recently that the full illuminating possibilities of coal-gas have been developed by the happy notion of converting the heating power of its flame into light-giving power, by the simple plan of suspending a suitable solid over the hot but non-luminous Bunsen burner. ”

“ The whole apparatus, or, at least, the under part of it, is dipped into the water bath warmed by the gas boiler. It acts thus: As the temperature rises the ethereal vapor in the shorter limb expands and drives the mercury up the longer tube until it closes the opening of the narrow tube, a b, and thereby impedes the power of the stream of gas. Still, the Bunsen burner does not go out, being always fed by the small opening, i, with sufficient gas to support a small flame until the water bath has so far cooled as to leave the opening at b free, when the burner again burns with a strong flame. ”

“ There are just two things you need to bend glass tubes with and these are (1) a Bunsen burner [99] and (2) the glass tubing, both of which you can buy of Eimer and Amend, Fourth Avenue, Cor. 18th Street, New York.
[99] Complete instructions for making a Bunsen burner will be found in The Magic of Science by the present author and published by Fleming H. Revell Co., New York. ”

“ Bunsen's name is identified with two instruments which he has devised, which have come into general use in science and the arts; the Bunsen gas-burner, which is almost indispensable in laboratories and in many processes of manufacturing, and is used in many households; and the Bunsen pump for accelerating filtration, which those who employ it could likewise hardly do without.
His published writings are many. Most of them are special papers relating to the subjects of investigation that have been already mentioned; others embody more general results of his studies. ”

“ It will suffice to point out here that in order to burn a gas so that it may have the highest available temperature, we must burn it with the smallest external flame-surface obtainable. This is done when the combining gases are completely mixed before issuing from the burner. Where this is impracticable we may employ a burner of the Bunsen type, and arrange matters so that a large amount of primary air is supplied. It is in this direction that modern improvements have been made with a view to obtaining hot flames for heating the Welsbach mantle. ”

“ It is so contrived as to give a flame that is a very much better substitute for the flame of the blowpipe, than the ordinary Bunsen’s burner, and may hence be employed for reducing, oxidising, fusing, and volatilising, as well as for the observation of coloured flames. ”

“ One who, or that which, burns or sets fire to anything. 2. The part of a lamp, gas fixture, etc., where the flame is produced. Bunsen's burnerÿ (Chem.) , a kind of burner, invented by Professor Bunsen of Heidelberg, consisting of a straight tube, four or five inches in length, having small holes for the entrance of air at the bottom. Illuminating gas being also admitted at the bottom, a mixture of gas and air is formed which burns at the top with a feebly luminous but intensely hot flame. ”

“ By making use of one of the Bunsen burners, the lines which are characteristic of some ten or twelve metals are readily seen when one of their more volatile salts is converted into vapour. For this purpose their chlorides are usually employed, but the reactions are common to all their salts. It is necessary that the metal should exist in the flame in the state of highly heated vapour or gas, in order that its characteristic rays should be given 429off. ”

“ If the air which is to support the combustion be heated before it reaches the flame, especially in the case of flat-flame burners, better results are produced, as was pointed out by Prof. Frankland more than 10 years ago, and this principle is now being carried out by some Continental burner makers. Of modern argands there are many excellent varieties, which can evolve 15-30 per cent. more light for the same quantity of gas than the best flat-flame burners. ”

“ BURNERS.--Burners consuming one-half of a cubic foot of gas per hour are considered standard in rating generators. Those having a greater or less capacity will decrease or increase the number of burners allowable in proportion.
Burners usually consume from 25 to 100 per cent. more than their rated consumption of gas, depending largely on the working pressure. The so- called 1/2-foot burner when operated at pressures of from 20- to 25- tenths inches water column (2 to 2-1/2 inches) is usually used with best economy. ”

“ The burners now chiefly used for the consumption of coal-gas for illuminating purposes are the bat’s-wing, the fish-tail, and various forms of Argand. The bat’s-wing burner is simply a fine slit cut in an iron nipple, and it produces a flat fan-like flame. The fish-tail is formed by boring two holes so that two jets of gas inclined at an angle of about 60° infringe on each other and produce a flat sheet of flame. ”

“ With burners of the mechanical atomizing design, the method of introducing air for combustion and the velocity of this air are of the greatest importance in securing good combustion and in the effects on the character and shape of the flame. Such burners are located at the front of the furnace and various methods have been tried for introducing the air for combustion. Where, in the spray burners, air is ordinarily admitted through a checkerwork under the burner proper, with the mechanical burner, it is almost universally admitted around the burner. ”

“ If the gases are cooled too much, they will either fall back into the lamp and extinguish the flame, or will be removable only by the draught of a long chimney. It will probably be the aim of the inventor to balance these requirements, and so to produce burners with very short or longer chimneys, according as appearance is to be consulted or the highest possible effect produced. The burner is a ring of brass tubes of considerable diameter, in proportion to the quantity of gas consumed, and thus provides for the delivery of gas expanded by heat. ”

“ A series of perforations is made in the lower part of the burner, so that, when the burner is made or set for the combustion of carbureted air or gas of any certain quality, the flame may be increased or diminished by turning the shell either up or down, as the case may be; the shell, in its movements up or down, either closing or opening the holes or perforations, and letting out or stopping the flow of the gas through the said holes, as it is moved up or down. ”

“ Never losing my hold for an instant, I slipped from the bed to the floor, dragging my captive with me. I had but a few steps to make to reach the gas-burner; these I made with the greatest caution, holding the creature in a grip like a vice. At last I got within arm’s-length of the tiny speck of blue light which told me where the gas-burner lay. Quick as lightning I released my grasp with one hand and let on the full flood of light. ”

“ Ten years ago this burner, with a regulator at the meter, was generally thought to be the most economical contrivance possible. It is now little used. Yet either the batwing or the fishtail tip can be used in any common burner except the argand. The old brass and iron tips are mostly superseded by those of "lava," being liable to an early change of the orifice from incrustation and rust. In the flat-flame burners there are differences in the internal arrangement. Perhaps our young gas-manufacturer here can tell us what is now the most approved burner." ”

“ It is worth observing that although injector burners are satisfactory in practice, and are in fact almost the only jets yet found to give prolonged satisfaction, the method of injecting air below the point of combustion in a self-luminous burner is in some respects wrong in principle. ”

“ The 1-foot burner is more economical when in the best condition, but requires a higher gas pressure, and is rather too powerful a unit light for good illuminating effect; the 0.5 burner naturally gives a better illuminating effect, but its economy is surpassed by the 0.7-foot burner, which is not too powerful for the human eye. ”

“ In other heating burners it is generally necessary to turn on the gas tap a few seconds before applying a light to the burner or ring or stove; the gas streaming through the mixing tube then fills it with acetylene and air mixed in the proper working proportions, and when the light is applied, there is no explosion in the mixing tube, or striking-back of the flame to the nipple. ”

“ The burner proper is a cage or basket of specially prepared magnesia, which yields a warmer tone of light than any obtained hitherto, while not requiring so high a temperature before combustion. The cap, made of a fire-resisting substance, fits on to a tubular arrangement, R, fixed in the upper portion of the body of the burner. The latter is supplied by air entering at the cone, O, which terminates the inner chamber, K, of the heater, and also by that drawn in by the rising column of gas, passing before the orifices, D, which may be regulated at will. ”