how can fire be different temperature?
In: Chemistry
A fire is a chemical reaction. You can imagine a molecule to be atoms (little marbles) linked by springs. All of the springs have difference stiffness, so breaking a spring releases energy, and the exact amount depends on a lot of things. When you create a new spring elsewhere, you create it with some energy.Take methane, for example. It’s something that burns quite easily, it’s formula is C1H4 : you have one ‘marble’ of carbon, 4 ‘marbles’ of hydrogen and 4 springs, each one between the Carbon at the centre, to one Hydrogen around. When you burn it, you destroy the 4 springs, you take two O2 (that’s two marbles of oxygen, linked together by a spring), and destroy those two springs too. Now you take the carbon, two oxygen and create two springs between the C and the two Os (that’s CO2, carbon dioxide), and to do this you need some energy. Good news, you had some in your pocket since you broke all the springs at the beginning.
Now you have to end the reaction, and you will create two molecules of water H2O. Once again, you need to create ‘springs’ to do this, and this requires energy.
Overall, if you had more energy by breaking the old bounds (that’s the real name for the springs) that you need to create the new ones, you will have at the end some energy left, and it will be heat : temperature rises.
So, different fires will have different temperatures because temperature is related to heat, and the heat released depends on the chemical reaction (that is, on what “burns”).
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