"The principle of this burner is simply that city gas is allowed to issue under such conditions."
Robert Bunsen
Robert Wilhelm Bunsen (1811-1899) was appointed Professor of Chemistry and Medicine at the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg in 1852. Before accepting the position, he negotiated the construction of a new laboratory building equipped with pipes for coal gas, which the city had begun to use to light the streets.
Bunsen was not happy with the equipment he had for heating samples in the laboratory. In 1827 Michael Faraday had written about a burner that used coal gas, but the flame produced too much soot as well as more light than heat. Bunsen's idea was to mix the coal gas with air before the flame rather than at the flame. Because the oxygen and gas would be well mixed at the point of combustion, the resultant flame would be hot rather than bright and almost free of soot.
Heidelberg University mechanic Peter Desaga developed the design for the burner based on Bunsen's idea. The burner is a vertical tube with a connection to a source of flammable gas—coal gas then, but these days usually methane, propane, or butane—with adjustable holes to admit air. The more gas used, the higher the flame will be, whereas the wider the air holes are opened, the more oxygen will be combined with 1'he gas and the hotter the flame.
Together with physicist Gustav Kirchhoff, Bunsen used his burner to heat samples so they could study their emission spectra. They thus discovered the elements cesium (in 1860) and rubidium (in 1861).
Bunsen and Desaga's 1855 device is very similar to the burners used today. However, research laboratories rely increasingly on heating mantles or hot plates because they are safer and heat more evenly.
