: why does a flame give off light?
In: Physics
A flame is a chemical reaction that is the rapid oxidation of a fuel and oxygen. This reaction is exothermic, meaning it gives off energy. This energy is released is many kinds of ways but one big part is invisible Infrared radiation. This invisible radioaction is what you feel as heat. You can feel it in your hands your face. It’s what makes a good campfire
Another big component of the reaction is output chemicals. In many types of fuel reactions, the major outputs are carbon dioxide and water vapor. But one other piece is sometimes just carbon, commonly referred to as soot. The black stuff that builds up on the bottom of pot when you cook over a campfire.
What happens when you take soot and mix it with infrared energy? Just like how infrared heats up your hand, it also hears up the soot. In fact it makes the soot really high temperature. Several hundred degrees. At that point, soot is so hot it glows. A dull red color to start, then bright orange and yellow. That’s the flame portion that you see of a fire.
Some kinds of fuel fires don’t produce a lot of soot, like well oxygenated natural gas or rubbing alcohol. All you get is a small blue flame.
Other fuel fires don’t produce any soot at all but instead emit ultraviolet light that we can’t see. Methanol race gas is this kind. It leads to invisible fires that leads to a dance of death for driver and crew that’s trapped in the fire. It causes problems with firefighting teams because they don’t even know where to point the fire extinguisher or how far away they are from the fire. These fires are very dangerous and very deadly
Latest Answers