Marlana and I just got back from a short camping trip. In our kit we had a propane lantern, and Marlana and I were wondering exactly how the mantle in such a lantern works. What we knew was that the mantles start as silk mesh bags. We’d been told that when you light them they turn to ash and that that ash is what glows and produces the light. But we weren’t convinced.
I just learned how they really work. The silk is impregnated with various metal oxides; the most common is a mixture of thorium oxide, cerium oxide, and magnesium oxide. When you light the mantle initially, the silk burns away, leaving the oxides as a fine ceramic mesh. When heated by the burning propane, the ceramic glows; because it’s such a fine mesh it has lots of surface area, so it glows extremely bright.
I thought that that was kind of, you’ll forgive the expression, cool.
