THE OSMIUM LAMP

Dr. Auer von Welsbach, the German scientist who had produced the Welsbach gas mantle, invented an incandescent electric lamp having a filament of the metal osmium. It was commercially introduced in Europe in 1905 and a few were sold, but it was never marketed in this country. It was generally made for 55 volts, two lamps to burn in series on 110-volt circuits, gave about 25 candlepower and had an initial efficiency of about 5½ lumens per watt. It had a very fair maintenance of candlepower during its life, having an average efficiency of about 5 l-p-w. Osmium is a very rare and expensive metal, usually found associated with platinum, and is therefore very difficult to obtain. Burnt out lamps were therefore bought back in order to obtain a supply of osmium. It is also a very brittle metal, so that the lamps were extremely fragile.

Osmium Lamp, 1905.

This incandescent lamp was used in Europe for a few years, but was impractical to manufacture in large quantities as osmium is rarer and more expensive than platinum.