Pretty much the title. Chemically speaking what’s going on when this happens?
In: Chemistry
Adding the water causes it to very quickly evaporate. That newly formed steam expands and rises, taking some oil with it. You now have tiny droplets of hot oil surrounded by air, which is far easier to ignite than the liquid oil sitting in the pot
No chemistry, just physics.
Burning oil is lighter than water and hot enough to flash-boil it.
When you pour water into burning oil, it has just enough time to sink into the oil before turning to steam. Steam takes up 1700 times as much space, meaning if you poured in a liter of water, you will get a violent steam explosion as the water suddenly decides to take up almost 2 cubic meters of space. And since it sank into the oil beforehand, it’s aggressive conquest of your kitchen throws burning oil everywhere.
When water boils to a vapor it expands. When you put water in hot oil (that’s around 130 degrees higher than the boiling point of water) it vaporizes immediately. Big Bada boom. Spraying hot oil everywhere, including into the air.
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