Kerosene lamp - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.

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Kerosene lamp
A kerosene lamp (also known as a paraffin lamp in some countries) is a type of lighting device
that uses kerosene as a fuel. Kerosene lamps have a wick or mantle as light source, protected by a
glass chimney or globe; lamps may be used on a table, or hand-held lanterns may be used for
portable lighting. Like oil lamps, they are useful for lighting without electricity, such as in regions
without rural electrification, in electrified areas during power outages, at campsites, and on boats.
There are three types of kerosene lamp: flat-wick, central-draught (tubular round wick), and
mantle lamp. Kerosene lanterns meant for portable use have a flat wick and are made in dead-
flame, hot-blast, and cold-blast variants.

Pressurized kerosene lamps use a gas mantle; these are known as Petromax, Tilley lamps, or
Coleman lamps, among other manufacturers. They produce more light per unit of fuel than wick-
type lamps, but are more complex and expensive in construction and more complex to operate. A
hand-pump pressurizes air, which forces liquid fuel from a reservoir into a gas chamber. Vapor
from the chamber burns, heating a mantle to incandescence and also providing heat.

Kerosene lamps are widely used for lighting in rural areas of Africa and Asia, where electricity is
not distributed or is too costly. Kerosene lamps consume an estimated 77 billion litres of fuel per
year, equivalent to 1.3 million barrels of oil per day,[1] comparable to annual U.S. jet-fuel
consumption of 76 billion litres per year.[2]
Swiss flat-wick kerosene
lamp. The knob protruding
to the right adjusts the wick,
Contents and hence the flame size.

History
Types[8]
Flat-wick lamp
Central-draft (tubular round wick) lamp
Mantle lamp
Kerosene lantern
Fuels
Performance
See also
References
External links

History
The first description of a simple lamp using crude mineral oil was provided by Persian alchemist al-Razi (Rhazes) in 9th
century Baghdad, who referred to it as the "naffatah" in his Kitab al-Asrar (Book of Secrets).[3] In 1846 Abraham Pineo Gesner
invented a substitute for whale oil for lighting, distilled from coal. Later made from petroleum, kerosene became a popular
lighting fuel. Modern and most popular versions of the kerosene lamp were later constructed by Polish inventor and pharmacist
Ignacy Łukasiewicz, in Lviv in 1853.[4][5][6][7] It was a significant improvement over lamps designed to burn vegetable or sperm
oil.

Types[8]

Flat-wick lamp

A flat-wick lamp is a simple type of kerosene lamp, which burns kerosene drawn up through a wick by capillary action. If this
type of lamp is broken, it can easily start a fire. A flat-wick lamp has a fuel tank (fount), with the lamp burner attached.
Attached to the fuel tank, four prongs hold the glass chimney, which acts to prevent the flame from being blown out and

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enhances a thermally induced draft. The glass chimney needs a "throat", or slight
constriction, to create the proper draft for complete combustion of the fuel; the draft
carries more air (oxygen) past the flame, helping to produce a smokeless light, which is
brighter than an open flame would produce.

The chimney is used for a more important duty. The mantle/wick holder has holes around
the outer edges. When the lantern is lit and a chimney is attached, the thermally induced
draft draws air thru these holes and passes over the top of the mantle, just as a chimney in
your house. This has a cooling effect and keeps the mantle from over heating. Without a
properly installed chimney, a definite safety condition exists. This is even more important if
using Aladdin lamps. They also have a thinner chimney to induce a faster air-flow. This
information should be adhered to regardless of the type of lantern in use.

The lamp burner has a flat wick, usually made of cotton. The lower part of the wick dips
into the fount and absorbs the kerosene; the top part of the wick extends out of the wick
tube of the lamp burner, which includes a wick-adjustment mechanism. Adjusting how
much of the wick extends above the wick tube controls the flame. The wick tube surrounds
the wick and ensures that the correct amount of air reaches the lamp burner. Adjustment is
usually done by means of a small knob operating a cric, which is a toothed metal sprocket New Zealand Railways lamp on the
bearing against the wick. If the wick is too high, and extends beyond the burner cone at the Weka Pass Railway
top of the wick tube, the lamp will produce smoke and soot (unburned carbon). When the
lamp is lit, the kerosene that the wick has absorbed burns and produces a clear, bright,
yellow flame. As the kerosene burns, capillary action in the wick draws more kerosene up from the fuel tank. All kerosene flat-
wick lamps use the dead-flame burner design, where the flame is fed cold air from below, and hot air exits above.

This type of lamp was very widely used by railways, both on the front and rear of trains and for hand signals, due to its
reliability. At a time when there were few competing light sources at night outside major towns, the limited brightness of these
lamps was adequate and could be seen at sufficient distance to serve as a warning or signal.

Central-draft (tubular round wick) lamp

A central-draught lamp, or Argand lamp, works in the same manner as the flat-wick lamp.
The burner is equipped with a tall glass chimney, of around 12 inches (300 mm) tall or
taller, to provide the powerful draft this lamp requires to burn properly. The burner uses a
wick, usually made of cotton, that is made of a wide, flat wick rolled into a tube, the seam of
which is then stitched together to form the complete wick. The tubular wick is then
mounted into a "carrier", which is some form of a toothed rack that engages into the gears
of the wick-raising mechanism of the burner and allows the wick to be raised and lowered.
The wick rides in between the inner and outer wick tubes; the inner wick tube (central draft
"Central-draught" tubular-wick
tube) provides the "central draft" or draft that supplies air to the flame spreader. When the kerosene lamp
lamp is lit, the central draft tube supplies air to the flame spreader that spreads out the
flame into a ring of fire and allows the lamp to burn cleanly.

Mantle lamp

A variation on the "central-draught" lamp is the mantle lamp. The mantle is a roughly pear-shaped mesh made of fabric placed
over the burner. The mantle typically contains thorium or other rare-earth salts; on first use the cloth burns away, and the rare-
earth salts are converted to oxides, leaving a very fragile structure, which incandesces (glows brightly) upon exposure to the
heat of the burner flame. Mantle lamps are considerably brighter than flat- or round-wick lamps, produce a whiter light and
generate more heat. Mantle lamps typically use fuel faster than a flat-wick lamp, but slower than a center-draught round-wick,
as they depend on a small flame heating a mantle, rather than having all the light coming from the flame itself.

Mantle lamps are nearly always bright enough to benefit from a lampshade, and a few mantle lamps may be enough to heat a
small building in cold weather. Mantle lamps, because of the higher temperature at which they operate, do not produce much
odor, except when first lit or extinguished. Like flat- and round-wick lamps, they can be adjusted for brightness; however,
caution must be used, because if set too high, the lamp chimney and the mantle can become covered with black areas of soot. A
lamp set too high will burn off its soot harmlessly if quickly turned down, but if not caught soon enough, the soot itself can
ignite, and a "runaway lamp" condition can result.

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One popular model of mantle lamp uses only a wick and is unpressurized.

Large fixed pressurized kerosene mantle lamps were used in lighthouse beacons for
navigation of ships, brighter and with lower fuel consumption than oil lamps used before.[9]

Kerosene lantern

A kerosene lantern, also known as a "barn lantern" or "hurricane lantern", is a flat-wick lamp
made for portable and outdoor use. They are made of soldered or crimped-together sheet-
metal stampings, with tin-plated sheet steel being the most common material, followed by
brass and copper. There are three types: dead-flame, hot-blast, and cold-blast. Both hot-blast
and cold-blast designs are called tubular lanterns and are safer than dead-flame lamps, as
tipping over a tubular lantern cuts off the oxygen flow to the burner and will extinguish the
flame within seconds.[10]

The earliest portable kerosene "glass globe" lanterns, of the 1850s and 1860s, were of the
dead-flame type, meaning that it had an open wick, but the airflow to the flame was strictly
controlled in an upward motion by a combination of vents at the bottom of the burner and an
open topped chimney. This had the effect of removing side-to-side drafts and thus
significantly reducing or even eliminating the flickering that can occur with an exposed flame. An 85 mm Chance Brothers
Incandescent Petroleum Vapour
Later lanterns, such as the hot-blast and cold-blast lanterns, took this airflow control even Installation, which produced the
further by partially or fully enclosing the wick in a "deflector" or "burner cone" and then light for the Sumburgh Head
channeling the air to be supplied for combustion at the wick while at the same time pre- lighthouse until 1976. The lamp
heating the air for combustion. (made around 1914) burned
vaporized kerosene (paraffin);
The hot-blast design, also known as a "tubular lantern" due to the metal tubes used in its the vaporizer was heated by a
construction, was invented by John H. Irwin and was patented on May 4, 1869 (https://www. denatured alcohol (methylated
google.com/patents/US89770)[11]. As noted in the patent, the "novel mode of constructing a spirit) burner to light. When lit,
lantern whereby the wind, instead of acting upon the flame in such a manner as to extinguish some of the vaporised fuel was
it, serves to support or sustain and prevent the extinguishment thereof." This improvement diverted to a Bunsen burner to
essentially redirected wind which might normally tend to extinguish the flame of an keep the vaporizer warm and the
unprotected dead-flame lantern, instead is redirected, slowed, pre-heated, and supplied to the fuel in vapor form. The fuel was
burner to actually suport and promote the combustion of the fuel. forced up to the lamp by air; the
keepers had to pump the air
Later, Irwin improved upon this design by inventing and patenting his cold-blast design on container up every hour or so.
May 6th, 1873 (https://www.google.com/patents/US138654)[12]. This design is similar to his This in turn pressurized the
earlier "hot-blast" design, except that the oxygen-depleted hot combustion byproducts are paraffin container to force the
redirected and prevented from recirculating back to the burner by redesigning the intake fuel to the lamp. The "white
products so that only oxygen-rich fresh air is drawn from the atmosphere into the lamp ("the sock" is in fact an unburnt
mantle, on which the vapor
inlets for fresh air are placed out of the ascending current of products of combustion, and said
burned.
products are thereby prevented from entering [the air intake]"[12]). The primary benefit of this
design compared to the earlier "hot-blast" design was to maximize the amount of oxygen
available for combustion by ensuring that only fresh air is supplied to the burner thereby
increasing the brightness and stability of the flame. [13]

Fuels
Contamination of lamp fuel with even a small amount of gasoline results in a lower flash point and
higher vapor pressure for the fuel, with potentially dangerous consequences. Vapors from spilled fuel
may ignite; vapor trapped above liquid fuel may lead to excess pressure and fires. Kerosene lamps are
still extensively used in areas without electrical lighting; the cost and dangers of combustion lighting are
a continuing concern in many countries.[14]
Dead-flame
Performance
Flat-wick lamps have the lowest light output, center-draft round-wick lamps have 3–4 times the output of flat-wick lamps, and
pressurized lamps have higher output yet; the range is from 8 to 100 lumens. A kerosene lamp producing 37 lumens for 4 hours
per day consumes about 3 litres (6.3 US pt; 5.3 imp pt) of kerosene per month.[15]

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Oil lamp output in candlepower (CP), lumens and incandescent electric watts
equivalent

Flat-wick width Candlepower Lumens Watts[16]

3/8" 4 50 3.3

1/2" 7 88 5.9

5/8" 9 113 7.5

3/4" 10 125 8.3

7/8"–1" 12 151 10.1

1-1/2" 20 251 16.7

2× 1", 1-1/16", 1-1/8" 30 377 25 Hot-blast

2× 1-1/2" 50 628.5 42

1-1/4" round "Dressel Belgian" 67 842 56

1-1/2" round "Rayo" 80 1000 66.6

2-1/2" round "Firelight" or "store" lamp 300 3771 251

12.57 lumens = 1 CP

See also
Candles
List of light sources
Robert Edwin Newbery
Cold-blast
Safe bottle lamp

References
1. Jean-Claude Bolay, Alexandre Schmid, Gabriela Tejada Technologies and Innovations for Development: Scientific
Cooperation for a Sustainable Future, Springer, 2012 ISBN 2-8178-0267-5 page 308.
2. ^ Energy Information Administration. "U.S. Prime Supplier Sales Volumes of Petroleum Products" (http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/d
nav/pet/pet_cons_prim_dcu_nus_a.htm).
3. Zayn Bilkadi (University of California, Berkeley), "The Oil Weapons", Saudi Aramco World, January–February 1995,
pp. 20–27.
4. "The Petroleum Trail" (https://web.archive.org/web/20090828103133/http://www.beskidniski.org.pl/szlaki/naftowy/szlak_naft
owy.htm). Archived from the original (http://www.beskidniski.org.pl/szlaki/naftowy/szlak_naftowy.htm) on 2009-08-28.
5. "Lukasiewicz, Ignacy" (https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/lukasiewicz-ig
nacy). Encyclopedia of World Biography. Encyclopedia.com.
6. "Pharmacist Introduces Kerosene Lamp, Saves Whales" (https://www.historychannel.com.au/this-day-in-history/pharmacist-
introduces-kerosene-lamp-saves-whales/). History Channel.
7. "Ignacy Łukasiewicz (1822–1882) – Polish pharmacist and Prometheus" (https://polska.pl/science/famous-scientists/ignacy-
lukasiewicz-18221882-polish-pharmacist-and-prometheus/). polska.pl. Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
8. "Gas mantle" (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gas_mantle&oldid=953280966), Wikipedia, 2020-04-26, retrieved
2020-10-06
9. Dennis L. Noble Lighthouses & Keepers: The U.S. Lighthouse Service and Its Legacy, Naval Institute Press, 2004
ISBN 1-59114-626-7, page 34.
10. "Tubular Oil Lanterns — Frequently Asked Questions" (https://web.archive.org/web/20131029192016/http://www.lanterns.u
s/faqs.htm). W. T. Kirkman Lanterns, Inc. Archived from the original (http://www.lanterns.us/faqs.htm) on 2013-10-29.
11. US patent 89770 (https://worldwide.espacenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPODOC&IDX=US89770), John H. Irwin, "Improvement in
lanterns", issued 1869-05-04
12. US patent 138654 (https://worldwide.espacenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPODOC&IDX=US138654), John H. Irwin,
"Improvement in lamps", issued 1873-05-06
13. It is worth noting that the terms "hot-blast" and "cold-blast" do not appear directly in either of John Irvin's patents. It is likely
these terms came into use later or were possibly marketing terms invented by sellers of kerosene lamps.

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14. Shepherd, Joseph E.; Perez, Frank A. (April 2008). "Kerosene lamps and cookstoves—The hazards of gasoline
contamination". Fire Safety Journal. 43 (3): 171–179. doi:10.1016/j.firesaf.2007.08.001 (https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.firesaf.
2007.08.001).
15. Narasimha Desirazu Rao Distributional Impacts of Energy Policies in India: Implications for Equity Stanford University, 2011
page 36.
16. "Lumens to watts (W) conversion calculator" (http://www.rapidtables.com/calc/light/lumen-to-watt-calculator.htm).
www.rapidtables.com. Retrieved 2017-08-27.

External links
"How to Assemble a Kerosene Lamp" (http://www.antiquelampsupply.com/help/11HowToAssembleAKeroseneLamp02.php)
. Antique Lamp Supply.
Information on blinking kerosene lamps (http://colag.de/blink.html)
Information on Dietz Kerosene Lamps and Lanterns (http://www.lanternnet.com)
Making and Repairing Kerosene Lamps (http://steampunkworkshop.com/kerosene-lamps.shtml)
Oil Lamp Basics for Survivalists (http://www.alpharubicon.com/primitive/oillampsstryder.html)

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