eli5 How exactly does a lighter produce flame?
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So a lighter is typically fueled by butane or propane. Both of those fuels are lighter cousins of gasoline. They very quickly evaporate at the typical range of temperatures you’d expect to experience. One button on the lighter opens a small valve. The pressure from the evaporated fluid forces a little bit of vapor out. Another button or a wheel of ferrocerium (similar to flint) produces a spark. That spark is hot enough to ignite the vapor. As the flame consumes the vapor from the cannister holding the fuel, it pulls more vapor into the flame, thus creating a stable flame.
Flame requires three things: fuel, heat, and an oxidizing agent. Lighters usually are just small fuel containers with a piece of flint that can produce sparks hot enough to ignite the fuel. The oxidizing agent is usually the air around you.
A lighter stores fuel. Either regular liquid fuel or pressurized liquified gas fuel.
This fuel is then converted to a gas. In the pressurized ones, releasing it turns it into a gas because of the lower pressure. In the regular liquid fuel lighters, the liquid is soaked up by a wick and evaporates at the top of the wick.
This gas then mixes with air, and once struck, that fuel-air mix reacts in fire. It’s struck by a metal scraper on ferrocerium, and as the ferrocerium is scratched it produces sparks to start the fire.
If you’re talking about a lighter like a zippo, there’s fabric in the base, typically cotton, that’s soaked in lighter fluid. A fabric wick is threaded through the top of the lighter down into the cotton, and the fuel soaks up through the wick. The rough metal wheel at the top rotates against a spring-loaded piece of ferrocerium (think flint and steel) and creates a spark. The spark ignites the fuel in the wick, and as it burns it pulls more fuel from the cotton below.
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