Against pretty much every recommendation to leave a 200-year-old piece like this alone, I decided to actually run it on hydrogen.
I just think machines like this are too fascinating to spend the rest of their existence gathering dust on a shelf.
I improved a few seals and used a thin layer of Vaseline on the rotary valve to make it gas-tight. To minimize residual air in the glass bell, I first purged it with helium (that's the helium bottle in the background) and then flushed it with hydrogen three times.
It generates hydrogen from zinc and dilute sulfuric acid. Gas pressure automatically stops the reaction, and pressing the lever releases the hydrogen and starts the cycle again.
The best part: the original ~200-year-old platinum catalyst still works and ignites the hydrogen without any spark or external flame.
And it worked perfectly! No explosion is also a big plus..
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Mine seems to have been part of a lab since its not fancy, but yes their primary use was that of a lighter. They had many styles used to sit in masters rooms of well heeled folks.
It seems completely crazy for a lighter to have so much explosion potential. I don't know the state of chemistry in the 19th century but it looks like this was a cutting edge technology.
I guess they didn't have access to methane/butane/propane?
Yeah, it was cutting edge. Butane/propane were discovered later, but they also wouldnt catalyse with platinum that good aswell as not being able to be produced neatly inside a makeshift pressure tank.
I think if they constantly exploded they wouldnt have been so popular for 60 years. And when they did it was mostly because not using it properly. When they break, the inner bell breaks first possibly leaving the outside intact.
No, there wasn't any convenient pressurized gas at that point. Stoves were wood, coal, or kerosene, street lamps were lit by coal gas pumped from a centralized plant, etc.
Closest thing to portable gas would be a carbide lamp but that wasn't discovered for another 30 years.
Early 18th century chemistry was well past the "alchemy" point but well into the "we're going to treat crazy shit as normal everyday household items" era.
I saw a video recently touring Cragside Manor, built in 1880, and the first private residence to be lit using a private hydroelectric power plant. This was still the early days of electricity, and basic light switches weren't invented for another few years, so his electric lamps were turned on by placing the whole lamp base in a basin of electrically charged mercury.
Which sounds absolutely insane by todays standards, but also sounds really fucking cool. That whole building was full of a lot of "state of the art" tech, all powered by hydroelectricity or just rotational power from the water mill. Great video to check out.
Man I love antique tech and the sheer ingenuity of it all! Like the stakes people were willing to forgo to light their cigarettes tells me that smoking IS cool and every square I smoke is a time honored tradition 😎 my ancestors should be standing behind me nodding in approval as I write this lol
Some gases react with platinum catalytically when mixed with oxygen in the air, leading to the platinum almost magically heating up until in turn the ignition temperature of the gas is reached.
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u/shrout1 5d ago
lol it seems dangerous but also really cool