Miner’s safety lamp

The chronology of the most remarkable contributions to combustion in the early stages of its development is as follows. In 1815, Sir Humphry Davy developed the miner s safety lamp. In 1826, Michael Faraday gave a series of lectures and wrote The Chemical History of Candle. In 1855, Robert Bunsen developed his premixed gas burner and measured flame temperatures and flame speed. Francois-Ernest Mallard and Emile Le Chatelier studied flame propagation and proposed the first flame structure theory in 1883. At the same time, the first evidence of detonation was discovered in 1879-1881 by Marcellin Berthelot and Paul Vieille this was immediately confirmed in 1881 by Mallard and Le Chatelier. In 1899-1905, David Chapman and Emile Jouguet developed the theory of deflagration and detonation and calculated the speed of detonation. In 1900, Paul Vieille provided the physical explanation of detonation... 

Heath and Frost proposed a modification of the miner s safety lamp so that it was possible to use it to heat a small piece of iron to incandescence which could then be touched to the open end of a fuse. This operation was done in such a manner that no flame or spark was produced outside the enclosure of the lamp (Ref 1)... 

Corpse Light. It is the blue flame inside the Miner s Safety Lamp, also called Davy Lamp,... 

Davy, Sir Humphry (1778-1829)- An Engl chemist who isolated Na, K, Ba, Ca Sr metals by electrolysis and devised the miner s safety lamp, briefly described in Vol 3, P C362-R, under Coal Mine Explosions and Fires Ref Hackh s (1946), 253-54... 

For lighters, sparking toys, industrial torches and miner s safety lamps... 

Describe a miner s safety lamp, and state the exact principle on which its use depends. 

A lamp used in areas of combustible gas that prevents ignition of the gas by the provision of a wire screen, which encloses the lamp flame. The wire screen absorbs the heat of the (oil lamp) light source before it can contact a gas, thereby preventing its ignition. Invented by the British chemist Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829) in 1815 for use by coal miners where firedamp was present. George Stephenson (1781-1848), a British inventor and engineer, also independently invented a similar miner s safety lamp at about the same time but shared credit for this invention with Sir Humphry Davy. 

Miner s safety lamp (Sir Humphry Davy) Davy devises a miner s safety lamp in which the flame is surrounded by wire gauze to cool combustion gases so that the mine s methane-air mixture will not be ignited. 

For a dozen years he regularly produced a series of immensely popular lectures on the latest discoveries in and applications of chemistry. Active in research, he discovered six elements in two years (1807-1808), conclusively disproved Lavoisier s hypothesis that oxygen was present in all acids (1810), and discovered and launched Michael Faraday into a stellar chemistry career. In 1812, he was knighted and in 1815 invented the coal miner s safety lamp that saved many lives. 

FIGURE 246. Depictions of aspects of Humphry Davy s Safety Lamp for Coal Miners (London, 1818)- His ingenious solution to lamps that would ignite coal gas with deadly results was incredibly simple- The fine metallic mesh would cool the coal gas below its flash point. Thus, although the flame and combustible gas were in open contact, there would be no explosion. 

Th. Goldschmidt, 52, 3346 (1958) Safety igniter for miner s lamps prepd from Al-bearing Ce alloys GerP 926654 (1955)... 

In 1812 he was knighted by the prince regent for his contributions to electrochemistry, married a wealthy widow Jane Apreece, and was thus able to retire from the Royal Institution at the age of thirty-four, although he remained the director of its laboratory. It was in this capacity that he appointed Michael Faraday as an assistant in the laboratory early in 1813. Later that year with his wife, her maid, and Faraday as an assistant, amanuensis (scribe), and reluctant valet, Davy embarked on an eighteen-month tour of the European continent, visiting many laboratories and sites of natural and cultural interest. On their return, Davy invented, with Faraday s assistance, the miners safety lamp, which reinforced his reputation in applied science. With a confidence that was shared by all romantics of the time, Davy believed that nothing was beyond his reach, and in 1820 he was elected president of the Royal Society The U K. National Royal Society. This was a position he was ill-equipped to undertake after... 

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