how is oxygen combustible but not flammable? If it feeds the fire isn’t it essentially the same thing?
In: Chemistry
no. Though your whole question isn’t really right to start because oxygen isn’t combustible by definition. “A combustible material is something that can combust in air. ” Oxygen can’t do that. The whole “air” requirement in that definition is the oxygen in the air.
Because oxygen is what is doing the “burning” in the oxidization reaction.
if you mix carbon and oxygen and burn it you get CO2, if you mix Hydrogen and Oxygen and burn it you get H20, but if you just mix carbon and hydrogen together and try to burn them, nothing will happen. You need the oxygen. In every case you need to oxygen (or another oxidizer, like flourine, which as actually an even better oxidizer that oxygen, but it is so reactive that it doesn’t really exist naturally).
But if you have pure oxygen and try to burn it, nothing happens.
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