Bunsen Burner

March 28, 1999

A heating device widely used in laboratories because it provides a hot, steady, smokeless flame. It is named for German chemist Robert Wilhelm Bunsen, who adapted the concept of a gas-air burner in 1855. The burner is a short, vertical tube of metal connected to a gas source and perforated at the bottom to admit air. Although he popularized the Bunsen burner, it was designed by British scientist Michael Faraday.

Bunsen, Robert Wilhelm (1811-1899), German chemist, born in Gšttingen. With German physicist Gustav Robert Kirchhoff, Bunsen invented the spectroscope and discovered spectrum analysis, which led to their joint discovery of the elements cesium and rubidium. 

Bunsen discovered the antidote for arsenic poisoning: hydrated iron oxide. 

He confirmed the principle in organic chemistry that the nature of a compound depends on the radicals composing it.