From Braziers and Bougies to Xenon: Part III

One of the first lamps burning gasified oil was developed by Nyberg and Lyth in Sweden 1881. It worked by vaporizing colza oil and burning it without a mantle as a Bunsen burner does. However, this type of lamp was not efficient at producing additional light output. The next step was the addition of the incandescent gas mantle invented by Carl Auer von Welsbach, in Vienna, in 1885. This led to the first crude kerosene Incandescent Oil Vapor lamp, which was installed at the L'Ile Penfret lighthouse, by the French, in 898. It used air pressure and a fuel vaporizer tube where the kerosene was preheated into a fine vapor before it was ignited as a flame. This dramatically increased the oxygen at the flame and provided a brighter flame using less fuel.