Lava Lamps
Monday June 12, 2006
Lava lamps are made with actual lava.
The lava is harvested in its cooled form on the big island of Hawaii. In a laboratory on the island, the lava is converted from a solid into a complex fluid (think ketchup) through a process of reverse helical condensation. At this point it is called “cold molten” lava, because it has the properties of hot molten lava, but at room temperature. The lava in this form is extremely unstable and is put into a formaldehyde bath for shipment to a lava lamp bottling facility in China. At the bottling plant, the formaldehyde is drained and the lava is dyed its final color. This lava is then bottled with negatively ionized water and sealed.
The negatively ionized water has the effect of hardening the cold molten lava so that it must be heated to make it flow. In the original lava lamps, formaldehyde was used throughout the entire production and the lava flowed even when the lamp was off. Formaldehyde was replaced with water in the late 1970’s due to increasing restrictions on formaldehyde in consumer products.