Tea light

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Burning tealight
Tea lights in different colors
Sacrificial lights in a catholic church

A candle also Rechaudkerze called, is a small, hardly blackening candle in a cup (well) of aluminum , sometimes of another metal, glass or heat-resistant plastic or without this mug as a more sustainable option.

The plural of tealight is tealights or tea lights . The shape of light was mainly used for candles in the 17th century and has been used with tea lights to this day.

use

Heart-shaped tealight candle holder made from Himalayan salt
Use as an impeller drive for Christmas pyramids

The tealight owes its name to its original use to keep a teapot warm on a warmer . The warming properties of the tea light are also used in fragrance lamps .

Today tea lights are also used for decorative purposes, in which case the light-emitting properties are used and heat plays a subordinate role. There is a large number of tealight holders on the market for this. There are also special tealights with color and aroma additives in the wax as scented candles , the use of which, however, is controversial for medical reasons - especially in the vicinity of children.

The tealight often burns calmly and with a small to medium-sized flame. Due to the good thermal conductivity of the aluminum cup, the entire amount of wax liquefies after a short burning time and can thus be completely burned off. The wick is attached to the wick holder, which holds the wick straight in the wax.

Because of the strong warming of the mug, a tea light should always be operated in a special holder, a lamp or at least on a heat-dissipating, fireproof and stable base.

Size, burning time, heating power

The tea lights most frequently offered today have a diameter of around 39 mm and a burn time of three to four hours. However, other sizes with a diameter of 36 mm to 59 mm and a height of 12 mm to 50 mm are also available. The burn time can be up to 24 hours. Commercially available tea lights made of paraffin have a heating output of around 30 to 40  watts , depending on the nature of the wick or the flame .

Heat development - risk of fire

If the tea light is in a vessel that absorbs and dissipates the heat of the liquid paraffin from the metal bowl, the paraffin in it can hardly ignite - on the other hand, if sufficient dissipation of the heat of combustion is not provided and / or the ambient temperature is too high, the metal bowl and that can Heat the receptacle so that all of the liquid paraffin catches fire over the entire surface and a dangerous flame forms.

But it is even more dangerous when tealights, e.g. B. due to improper storage, become damp and the water collects at the bottom of the tea light during the burn - if the tea light has burned down sufficiently, the water at the bottom of the tea light cup will eventually reach the boiling temperature, in order to with its subsequent explosive evaporation with the remaining Paraffin to form an aerosol that burns as a jet flame or a ball of fire (see also: fat explosion ). Tea lights should therefore always be stored in a dry place, never left burning unattended and, in the event of a fire, never be extinguished with water, but only by suffocation.

Regulation of the flame height

Sometimes the heat generated by a large flame appears to be too intense, for example for heating or keeping small quantities warm. By adding pieces of wax, which then melt, the paraffin level increases and the wick protrudes less. This makes the flame smaller and the heat generated less. Wax residues are used appropriately. Mixing different waxes or paraffins is not a problem with these small amounts.

Renewed lighting and complete use

Tea lights that have burned down a long way can usually only be re-lit with difficulty, as the oxygen in the aluminum vessel is quickly used up and if the convection is still low, it is not sufficiently fed back. To do this, the heat is quickly dissipated through the vessel so that the wax does not melt enough and therefore cannot rise up the wick, causing it to burn. This can be remedied by tilting the aluminum shell and moving the wick in the wick holder to the lower edge of the shell after blowing it out. As a result, a sufficiently large residue of wax collects over the wick holder, which otherwise dissipates the heat of fusion. Many warmers have a deeper recess in the bottom. This is easy to do by pushing it out of the hollow towards the edge. In addition, the hot paraffin runs towards the wick so that no unburned residues remain on the edges of the aluminum shell. In this respect, it is also worthwhile for the last minutes of the burnout. After re-igniting, the bowl should be brought back into this inclined position, which facilitates air convection in the bowl. Sticky wick holders can be moved with a match to the edge of the bowl to be placed at an angle for the last minutes of burning. This means that fewer paraffin residues remain in the bowls with a bottom groove. Cooled paraffin residues can easily be loosened with a knife and introduced when using a new light (see above ). Another possibility to make full use of the wax residue is to lift the aluminum bowl with pliers or tweezers and heat it for a few seconds over another tea light. The aluminum heats up quickly and the liquid wax can be completely poured into a new tea light.

Manufacturing

In contrast to normal candles, paraffin is used to make tealights, which is either cold-pressed as granules into the appropriate shape or poured liquid into the tealight envelope. The latter method is mostly only used for tea lights with scent and color or for particularly high-quality lights. The cheaper candles are pressed without a wick, then pierced and the wick loosely inserted in the wick holder made of sheet iron.

Differences in quality

There are products on the market that have different qualities. There are wicks that are only externally immersed in paraffin and therefore often burn down quickly when lit, so that the remaining wick length is not sufficient for the desired heat or brightness. Furthermore, due to production, the candle is only loosely in the aluminum container and therefore often falls out during transport. This prevents the wick holder from sticking to the aluminum base. There are also aluminum bowls with a groove punched into the bottom at the edge. Even if the tea light is not used in a warmer or on a similar surface, this groove ensures that the base does not get too hot, especially in the final phase, and therefore does not cause a fire hazard. A paraffin residue necessarily remains in this groove.

In the past, tealights sometimes consisted of an inferior paraffin mass, which could lead to the tealight soot and the bottom of a jug above it becoming soiled. The possible release of harmful substances from paraffin candles (and thus also tealights) is sometimes discussed, but the amounts released are so small that one has no negative effects to fear with normal use, apart from allergy sufferers or people with previous illnesses.

environmental Protection

Tea light variants. From the left: 1. Commercially available tea light in an aluminum bowl (burning time approx. 4 hours); 2. Light in the tin-plated, reusable metal bowl (approx. 8 h); 3. Refill for a particularly tall tea light (approx. 24 hours); 4. Glass container for tall tea light (24 h)

With conventional tea lights, the aluminum bowl is designed for single use these days, so that a relatively large amount of pure aluminum accumulates as waste. To avoid this, only one of the GDR tealights per pack of 10 had an aluminum cup into which the remaining tealights had to be inserted. In the meantime, however, for environmental reasons, such tea lights without aluminum cups are available again, which are put into the normal burned-out or reusable cups made of thick glass or more stable metal. However, since the heat output of the flame is just enough to liquefy the paraffin in such a case, tea lights in glass cups burn less, i.e. only in the middle, while the edge of the glass is cooled and a large part of the paraffin remains unburned . From this point of view, it is therefore better to reuse normal burned-out aluminum cups. If this is not feasible, the empty cups can also be collected separately and returned to aluminum recycling (in a container, for example the empty sales bag) .

similar products

A kind of predecessor or variant of the modern tea light is the Hindenburg light, which was used for emergency lighting in World War I and World War II . The Hindenburg light found a late successor in the can light . A holder with two wicks stands in a wax-filled tin can. If both are ignited, a common, tongue-shaped flame forms over the can light.

The grave light works according to the same principle - a cup filled with paraffin with a stabilized wick in the wick holder . Because of the larger diameter of the candle vessel and the greater distance from the hot wick to the edge, a transparent plastic housing can be used. Depending on the outside temperature and wind conditions, this light can burn down unevenly if it is not protected by a lantern housing.

The rechaud is used to keep food warm .

Web links

Wiktionary: Tealight  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations
Commons : Tealights  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. light, n.. In: Jacob Grimm , Wilhelm Grimm (Hrsg.): German dictionary . tape 12 : L, M - (VI). S. Hirzel, Leipzig 1885 ( woerterbuchnetz.de ).
  2. ^ Warning from the Professional Association of Pediatricians (BVKJ) , published on heilpraxisnet.de, November 20, 2016
  3. Dangers from candles and tea lights ; Nuremberg fire brigade , last accessed September 2, 2016.
  4. Sascha Ott: Kitchen experiments - Exploding tea light ; WDR, June 14, 2016 , last accessed September 2, 2016.
  5. https://www.codecheck.info/news/Koennen-Kerzen-krank-machen-103164