Colored Flame Burner

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Gaertner Scientific Co. 1926 advert for colored flame burner
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Title

Colored Flame Burner

Subject

Chemistry
Atomizer
Combustion

Description

Physical Description
A small glass jar captured between a porcelain base and a porcelain cap, the latter of which is held on the top of the glass jar with a rubber gasket. A blown glass tube enters the glass jar from the side by means of a rubber stopper and a second tube is built into the porcelain top. On the top, a fan shaped aperture  (burner?) is mounted.
Object has a tin fume/exhaust fanout on the top connected to the body by a white ceramic chute. The chute is connected to a white ceramic lid with a port branching out at the base of the exhaust chute creating a T-shaped pipeway. The top has two curved hooks that guide metal pins to the base of the object. The base consists of a white ceramic donut with a ring gasket in the center that a glass chamber sits on. The pins hold the lid in place with metal thumb screws. The glass chamber is a cylinder with a hole on the side. An L-shaped glass tube sits in the hole and the surrounding space of the hole is filled with a rubber and cork stopper. The part of the L-shaped tube that sits in the chamber has orange staining on the bottom.

Funcitonal Description
 
The function of this apparatus has not been tested, but it is believed that a combustible gas is pumped into the chanber from the tube in the porcelain top, while some ofther gas is admitted from the tube in the stoppered side. The gasses then mix inside the glass jar and the top fan is a burner that allow for flame tests (color and steadiness, perhaps) to be performed.

Creator

Henry Roell and Garven Huntley, with cataloging by Gary Spikberg, Andrew Merdzinski, Andrew Stanley, Nick Lesko and additions and corrections by Steven A. Walton

Date

1920s?

Format

physical object

Language

n/a

Identifier

none

Coverage

USA

Physical Dimensions

11cm width x 20cm tall x 12.5 cm length (exhaust stem)

Materials

porcelain, glass, rubber, cork, nickeled steel

Maker

Gaertner Scientific Corporation, Chicago [now in Skokie], IL

Inscriptions

[etched on glass] Gaertner, Chicago

History of the Object

The Gaertner Scientific Corporation was founded in 1896.

Location

Fisher Hall, physics storage room

Collection

Citation

Henry Roell and Garven Huntley, with cataloging by Gary Spikberg, Andrew Merdzinski, Andrew Stanley, Nick Lesko and additions and corrections by Steven A. Walton, “Colored Flame Burner,” Michigan Tech Inventory of Historic Scientific Instruments, accessed April 18, 2024, https://ihsi.omeka.net/items/show/200.