Smoke consumers
A smoke consumer is a mostly electrically operated device in a porcelain cladding , which supposedly serves to purify the room air from smoke . Mostly it depicts Asian motifs or an animal.
history
Smoke consumers were popular with cigar smokers in the Federal Republic of Germany and the GDR, especially during the 1950s . In the 1950s and 1960s, most of the electric smoke consumers still available today were manufactured and are now a popular collector's item.
Mode of action
With the help of an electric heater (usually an incandescent lamp ), scented oil is vaporized, which superimposes the smoke with its aroma; The resulting convection also distributes the smoke better in the room. A smoke eater is therefore, contrary to his name, not able to dissolve smoke or to render it harmless; the amount of pollutants present in the environment remains constant. In the case of smoke consumers with an incandescent lamp as heating, the light emitted by it is also often used: the eyes of animal figures light up, with building-shaped smoke consumers the light falls through the windows, etc. This emphasizes the character of the smoke consumer as a decorative object.
The scented oils ( smoke consumer essence ) used earlier to fill the smoke consumer sometimes contained substances that, from today's point of view, must be considered harmful to health; for example, a 1931 recipe calls for the use of formaldehyde . It is therefore not advisable to use any remaining stock; For the operation of a smoke consumer, one should fall back on the scented oils widely used today for scented lamps.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Smokers . In: Pharmaceutical newspaper . March 7, 1931, p. 277 ( publication server TU Braunschweig ).