Carl Auer von Welsbach: Chemist, Inventor, Entrepreneur by Roland Adunka & Mary Virginia Orna

Author:Roland Adunka & Mary Virginia Orna
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

Auer and Haitinger worked with cerite ores and zirconium ores, sometimes in platinum crucibles, and dealt with industrial quantities of pure lanthanum and zirconium nitrate. Constrained for space, in the summer of 1887, Auer bought the bankrupt chemical and pharmaceutical plant, Würth & Co., located in Atzgersdorf , a suburb of Vienna. Haitinger took over the management of the factory where the manufacture of the salts of rare earths and their solutions proceeded on a greatly enlarged scale. The mantles for Austria-Hungary were manufactured and distributed by Lindheim & Co. in Vienna. R. Pintsch introduced them into Germany. To Pintsch the introduction of knitted stockings is due, as well as the improvement of the burners, which he and Viennese lamp manufacturers produced. The glass cylinders for the chimneys32 were supplied by a Bohemian glass works.

The promising beginning did not last long: the public gradually rejected the greenish light. In addition, the mantles were very sensitive and the enveloping glass cylinders jumped around too much. In addition, the luminosity of the mantle decreased noticeably over the course of its service life. In the United States, Auer’s first incandescent light was received better, especially where natural gas or gas-rich luminescent gas was used since its utilization for lighting purposes was only possible by means of this invention , and the higher combustion temperature also gave a somewhat more appealing color to the light. But the initial euphoria and the promising production was over. In 1899, the plant at Atzgersdorf had to be closed and capable employees had to be let go.

Auer, who was by now the only chemist, continued to improve his incandescent light, partly in his laboratory, which he had set up again in his house after the cessation of work at the factory. His long-term secretary, Felix Kuschenitz (1868–1936), who also assisted Auer in the laboratory and in the area of measurements, continued to conduct whatever business there was.

This was now a time of decompression after a huge workload. But in it, the seeds of new fruitful work were being sown. On the one hand, Auer was concerned with the technical problems of illumination in order to explain the enigmatic strong light emission of his luminous fluid of the thorium oxide with which he had repeatedly worked; on the other, he worried about the inexplicable, but downright annoying fluctuations in the brightness that Haitinger had managed to reduce by adding cerium . One must not forget that physics at that time knew almost nothing at all about the radiation laws, and that, for example, the luminosity of the gases under the influence of high-voltage electrical current in Geissler tubes approached the ideal of cold light, a phenomenon that was very little explored. It can be compared with the light of fireflies, which glow without heat production. Auer must have pondered cold light, for he collected fireflies and examined their light in his spectroscope . He soon abandoned these studies and let the rest of the fireflies go. But he continued

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