why charcoal burns so hot even though it’s already been burned
In: Physics
All fire is, is what’s called an exothermic reaction. Basically a material reacts with another material and produces and excess of heat. In wood the thing that reacts is the cellulose which give the wood it’s structure. Cellulose actually will react in 2 different ways when heat is applied. In relatively low heat, high oxygen environments like the one use to make charcoal the cellulose will simply form the black char by bonding with oxygen (which releases heat).
However in the presence of higher heat and lower oxygen that char will react again. This time producing hydrogen, nitrogen, and other gas which themselves burn at a high temperature, as well as producing that white ash you see when charcoal is burned. Some people refer to this as “gassification”. We create this high heat low oxygen environment with starter fluid, but then the reactions sustains itself until all the cellulose is consumed.
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