Kerosene lamp

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.

Kerosene lanterns meant for portable use have a flat wick and are made in dead-flame, hot-blast, and cold-blast variants.

Kerosene lamps are widely used for lighting in rural areas of Africa and Asia, where electricity is not distributed or is too costly.

[5] In 1846, Abraham Pineo Gesner invented a substitute for whale oil for lighting, distilled from coal.

Modern and most popular versions of the paraffin lamp were later constructed by Polish inventor and pharmacist Ignacy Łukasiewicz, in Lviv in 1853.

Attached to the fuel tank, four prongs hold the glass chimney, which acts to prevent the flame from being blown out and 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.

Adjustment is usually done by means of a small knob operating a cric, which is a toothed metal sprocket bearing against the wick.

When the lamp is lit, the kerosene that the wick has absorbed burns and produces a clear, bright, yellow flame.

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.

While the Kosmos Brenner doesn't use a flame spreader other side draft kerosene lamps do.

Mantle lamps, because of the higher temperature at which they operate, do not produce much odor, except when first lit or extinguished.

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.

[18] 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.

Later lanterns, such as the hot-blast and cold-blast lanterns, took this airflow control even further by partially or fully enclosing the wick in a "deflector" or "burner cone" and then channeling the air to be supplied for combustion at the wick while at the same time pre-heating the air for combustion.

The hot-blast design, also known as a "tubular lantern" due to the metal tubes used in its construction, was invented by John H. Irwin and was patented on May 4, 1869.

[20] This design is similar to his earlier "hot-blast" design, except that the oxygen-depleted hot combustion byproducts are redirected and prevented from recirculating back to the burner by redesigning the intake products, so that only oxygen-rich, fresh air is drawn from the atmosphere into the lamp ("the inlets for fresh air are placed out of the ascending current of products of combustion, and said products are thereby prevented from entering [the air intake]"[20]).

[21] The World Health Organization considers kerosene to be a polluting fuel and recommends that “governments and practitioners immediately stop promoting its household use”.