how is oxygen combustible but not flammable? If it feeds the fire isn’t it essentially the same thing?

376 views

how is oxygen combustible but not flammable? If it feeds the fire isn’t it essentially the same thing?

In: Chemistry

8 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Oxygen is neither of those things. Let’s start with the definition of “combustion”

> Combustion: rapid chemical combination of a substance with oxygen, involving the production of heat and light.

Oxygen is not capable of combustion, thus not combustible. (Yes, there are exotic oxygen + oxygen reactions, but they produce no heat.)

Similarly:

> Flammable: a substance is one that burns.

Nope, you can’t burn oxygen either.

You are viewing 1 out of 8 answers, click here to view all answers.