Döbereiner's lamp, also called a "tinderbox" ("Feuerzeug"), is a

lighter A lighter is a portable device which creates a flame, and can be used to ignite a variety of items, such as cigarettes, gas lighter, fireworks, candles or campfires. It consists of a metal or plastic container filled with a flammable liquid or ...

invented in 1823 by the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe th ...

Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner (13 December 1780 – 24 March 1849) was a German chemist who is best known for work that foreshadowed the periodic law for the chemical elements, and for inventing the first lighter, which was known as the Döbere ...

. The lighter is based on the Fürstenberger lighter (invented in Basel in 1780; in which hydrogen gas is ignited by an electrostatically generated spark). Döbereiner's lamp was in production until ca. 1880. In the jar, similar to the

Kipp's apparatus Kipp's apparatus, also called Kipp generator, is an apparatus designed for preparation of small volumes of gases. It was invented around 1844 by the Dutch pharmacist Petrus Jacobus Kipp and widely used in chemical laboratories and for demonstratio ...

zinc Zinc is a chemical element with the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. Zinc is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodi ...

metal reacts with dilute

sulfuric acid Sulfuric acid (American spelling and the preferred IUPAC name) or sulphuric acid ( Commonwealth spelling), known in antiquity as oil of vitriol, is a mineral acid composed of the elements sulfur, oxygen and hydrogen, with the molecular fo ...

to produce

hydrogen Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At standard conditions hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula . It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-to ...

gas. When a valve is opened, a jet of hydrogen is released onto a platinum sponge. The sponge catalyzes a reaction with atmospheric oxygen, which heats the catalyst and ignites the hydrogen, producing a gentle flame. Döbereiner fire gadget

The Döbereiner's lamp is considered as the first commercial application of

heterogeneous catalysis In chemistry, heterogeneous catalysis is catalysis where the phase of catalysts differs from that of the reactants or products. The process contrasts with homogeneous catalysis where the reactants, products and catalyst exist in the same phase. ...

and was commercialized for lighting fires and pipes. The world's largest manufacturer of these lighters was Heinrich Gottfried Piegler from Schleiz in Thuringia (Germany). It is said that in the 1820s over a million of the "tinderboxes" were sold. Döbereiner Feuerzeug G

In Great Britain examples of the lighter are exhibited in the

Science Museum A science museum is a museum devoted primarily to science. Older science museums tended to concentrate on static displays of objects related to natural history, paleontology, geology, industry and industrial machinery, etc. Modern trends in ...

in London, in Germany in the

Deutsches Museum The Deutsches Museum (''German Museum'', officially (English: ''German Museum of Masterpieces of Science and Technology'')) in Munich, Germany, is the world's largest museum of science and technology, with about 28,000 exhibited objects from ...

, the old pharmacy at

Heidelberg Castle Heidelberg Castle (german: Heidelberger Schloss) is a ruin in Germany and landmark of Heidelberg. The castle ruins are among the most important Renaissance structures north of the Alps. The castle has only been partially rebuilt since its demoli ...

, the Kulturhistorisches Museum Schloss

Merseburg Merseburg () is a town in central Germany in southern Saxony-Anhalt, situated on the river Saale, and approximately 14 km south of Halle (Saale) and 30 km west of Leipzig. It is the capital of the Saalekreis district. It had a dioces ...

, the Municipal Museum in

Braunschweig Braunschweig () or Brunswick ( , from Low German ''Brunswiek'' , Braunschweig dialect: ''Bronswiek'') is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany, north of the Harz Mountains at the farthest navigable point of the river Oker, which connects it to the ...

, the Goethe National Museum in Weimar, the Museum Gunnar-Wester-Haus in

Schweinfurt Schweinfurt ( , ; ) is a city in the district of Lower Franconia in Bavaria, Germany. It is the administrative centre of the surrounding district (''Landkreis'') of Schweinfurt and a major industrial, cultural and educational hub. The urban ag ...

, the Astronomisch-Physikalisches Kabinett

Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel and the district of the same name and had 201,048 inhabitants in December 2020 ...

, the Regional Museum

Bad Lobenstein Bad Lobenstein is a spa town in the Saale-Orla-Kreis district, in Thuringia, Germany with a population of about 6,000 inhabitants. Until 2005, the town was named Lobenstein. The town, grouped round a rock, upon which stand the ruins of an old c ...

, the Municipal Museum

Zeulenroda Zeulenroda-Triebes is a German town in the district of Greiz in the state of Thuringia. Zeulenroda-Triebes is situated in the south of Greiz in the mountains of the Thuringian Slate Mountains (Thüringer Schiefergebirge), on the border with Sa ...

, the Stadtmuseum

Gera Gera is a city in the German state of Thuringia. With around 93,000 inhabitants, it is the third-largest city in Thuringia after Erfurt and Jena as well as the easternmost city of the ''Thüringer Städtekette'', an almost straight string of cit ...

, the Mineralogical Collection in

Jena Jena () is a German city and the second largest city in Thuringia. Together with the nearby cities of Erfurt and Weimar, it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 500,000 inhabitants, while the city itself has a po ...

and at the Museum Bayerisches Vogtland in Hof. Rechnung Gottfried Piegler

See also

References

Further reading