Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material. Water is 2 hydrogen and 1 oxygen. Every molecule is fully oxidized. It’s also a common byproduct of fire. Therefore, you can’t burn it, because it’s already burnt
Oh man… Wait until you hear about fires hot enough that if you put water on then, it breaks the water molecule and the hydrogen molecules cause an explosion.
Look up class D fires.
Furthermore, you can burn water with a strong enough oxidizer. Oxygen, despite lending its name to the word “oxidize”, is not the best oxidizer out there. That belongs to things with fluorine in it. You can burn water with pure fluorine gas to produce hydrogen fluoride and oxygen.
Don’t try this at home. Both fluorine and the resulting HF is deadky.
HF is itself a super nasty piece of work – a deadly acid that seeps through your skin and kills you from the inside.
The fun part about that: you can burn hydrogen with fluorine because fluorine is the best oxidizer; it’s then deadly (and caustic) because hydrogen is not the best reducer - it’s both an oxidizer and a reducer and, as a result, it’s basically middle-of-the-road for both properties. Specifically, most metals are better. So the HF will happily drop its hydrogen for many metals to oxidize (fluoridate) them instead. Lead, iron, zinc, aluminum, magnesium, and lithium will each make a way more stable fluoride than does hydrogen.
In solution (say, if you inhale HF, it’ll dissolve into the moisture in your lungs), it breaks apart into H⁺ and F⁻ ions - both of which are just straight-up electrochemically promiscuous. The pair’ll run through your lungs breaking up organic bonds like couples at an orgy.
Even so, HF doesn’t hold a candle in terms of danger (and oxidation potential) compared to fluorine peroxide / dioxygen difluoride / FOOF.
That looks like even more fun than chlorine trifluoride
Or Chlorine Trifluoride. That’s some “no way in hell” stuff right there.
Isn’t this the stuff that the fascists tried to weaonize in WWII, but it was too dangerous to handle and it, like, burnt down a concrete bunker or something?
There’s always a lower energy state
There was some other thread talking about invisible fire produced by burning a particular gas… imagine getting burned and not being able to identify the source
You’re probably referring to methanol fires! Commonly used as a fuel for things like F1 cars, iirc.
Hydrogen fires have the same characteristic as i understand it
Ah so it’s hot enough to electrolyze water and then when the hydrogen and oxygen gas move out of that heat zone, they’re still in a hot enough area to re-oxidize into water, burning the hydrogen. Neat.
Nothing about this makes sense. Is it reoxidizing or burning?
Yes.
Not only will metal fires break apart the water into oxygen and hydrogen, but they will consume the oxygen, as the metal oxide is a more stable energy state than is water. So you end up with a billow of hydrogen coming off the fire that mixes with the oxygen just above (because lighter gases rise) the oxygen-depleted zone of the fire, and it combusts there.
Magnesium fire has entered the chat
Reddit hasn’t had a quality shower thought like this on the front page in years. Well done fediverse.
Any time I tried to post a shower thought on Reddit it was deleted because it either was posted previously (at any point in time, even if it was years ago) or was posted somewhere else online, not just Reddit, also at any point in time.
Nuts.
I might actually have to subscribe. I’m so used to avoiding the “default subs”
I’ve seen a few great ones lately, but I’ve also been seeing a ton from people who don’t understand the concept very well. Things like “it’s not nice to be mean to people” or “there are more countries in Asia than China, Japan, and South Korea.” I can’t really say much as I haven’t posted anything myself, but c’mon people!
I guess that makes water Hydrogen rust…
More like hydrogen ash
Water is also hydrogen and oxygen floating around in a sea where they are constantly switching partners. An orgy if you will.
That’s why you’re called a seaman when you go out floating in the ocean.
Next time it snows, remember: you’re being gently coated in stellar ash.
I like this one. ⛷️
Golden shower, twice removed.
So, I’m no chemist, but if H2O is already oxidized, what do you call it when you make hydrogen peroxide - H2O2?
You call that an unstable compound that doesn’t want to exist. Hydrogen peroxide is constantly looking for an excuse to decompose back into water and oxygen. Making it is like rolling a barrel uphill. As soon as you let go, the barrel will roll back down to the bottom of the valley.
It’s like rolling a barrel up a bumpy hill.
The oxygen atom in a water molecule has an oxidation number of -2 (which is as reduced as it can get in common compounds you’re likely to find, and it has no reason to react further). In hydrogen peroxide, the oxygen atoms have an oxidation number of -1, so not quite as reduced as oxygen would rather be (which is why H2O2 is gonna oxidize whatever is around it. Those oxygen atoms are gonna get those sweet, sweet electrons one way or the other by god!)
The hydrogen atoms are identical between H2O and H2O2; that’s not where the magic happens, so to speak.
Checkmate, chemists!
Per - a prefix meaning perfect, thoroughly, or completely.
Super oxidized?
DiHydrogen Dioxide?
Entropy’s a bitch.
You just have to wait for it to get hot enough to
grillsteam the burgers and franks.Mmm, mouth-watering hamburgers
I thought we were having steamed clams?
Oohhh no I said steamed hams!
And you call them steamed hams, despite the fact that they are obviously grilled?
Did you try to burn the water while showering?
Yes, but the fire went out somehow and then I couldn’t start it again.
Reminds me of a joke me and my freinds made about a hipster restaurant that sells “deconstructed water” that’s just a balloon filled with hydrogen and a match.
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Are you saying hydrogen doesn’t burn because it doesn’t produce carbon?
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