Our ancestors discovered fire since hundreds of thousands of years ago. Even so, we still feel dazzled by the flame of the campfire danced. Light the fire and control it is one form of the chemical activities of the oldest practiced by humans.
For centuries, researchers have established a basic understanding of how fire behaves in the terra firma. In the endless search, the researchers tried to go beyond the limitations. Some of them decided to bring the fire “out of this world” to see how his behavior.
In 2012, the astronauts on the International Space Station lit the fire. Through the Flame Extinguishing Experiment or FLEX, scientists observe something that’s just a theory until that time. Droplets hexane lit with oxygen in the combustion chamber has produced a ball of blue fire that cold.
How fire could be cool? Why should we go to space to observe the fire?
Cold Fire
The fire appears when there is something burning and gas in the vicinity to be super hot and start to shine. Recipe to make a fire is quite simple, since we only require three ingredients: oxygen, fuel, and heat. The basic relationship is also known as the “fire triangle”.
As the inhabitants of the earth, we do not need to worry too much about the ingredients first, oxygen. Every time, the planet we hold about 1.200.000 billion metric tons of oxygen gas. In addition to sustaining life, oxygen rich environments, this provides the perfect conditions to start a fire.
Next, we switch to the fuel, i.e. any substance that will burn in the presence of oxygen and release energy in the process. Technically everything around us is fuel and it will burn if left to reach a high enough temperature.
On the left side of the photo is visible flutter of blue fire that flared up as far as 140 kilometers from the surface of the moon
However, generally people use flammable materials or has a low fire as fuel. For example: coal, petroleum, or hexane.
Burning fire involves a process of simple chemical known as combustion. During this process, the fuel combine with oxygen to undergo a few chemical reactions emit energy in the form of light and heat.
However, the fuel can only react with oxygen when it is above the temperature starting. The excess energy required to reach this temperature and start the burning process is provided by the external source of heat. For example, a heat source to turn on the stove is electric spark, while for julienne, that is the friction head matches against a panel of textured matchbooks.
Cold fire following the chemical is exactly the same, in which hydrocarbons are used as fuel starts to burn when ignited in the presence of oxygen. However, this flame can’t freeze anything. The fire is called “cold fire” as the temperature of the flame is quite low. A cook stoves produces an average flame about 1,700 degrees Celsius, while the temperature of the flame cold ranged from 400 to 600 degrees Celsius.
What Is Unique Of Cold Fire ?
Cold fire that observed in the ISS is round, which is almost impossible re-created in the Earth under normal conditions.
Most of us may not realize it, but gravity plays a major role in how fire behaves in our planet. When the fire ignited in the Earth, a column of air/gas in the surrounding areas become hot. Based on convection, the hot gas that is less dense will rise and suck out the air is cool and fresh to maintain the fire.
The effect of push and pull between the hot gas that is lighter and the cold air that is heavy this raises the form of dots of different water from the flames. In space, no gravity to create the gradient of the density, which explains why the flame-shaped ball.
Flowers and candles are placed in the tombs to guide the spirits during a visit to the nature of life.
Fire ball-shaped are also not able to replenish the supply of oxygen. Regulator external, such as a fan, used to ignite the fire. The flow of oxygen controlled this raises the blue flame faint in which the fuel has complete combustion to form carbon monoxide and formaldehyde, without the rest of the soot. The nature of the flame is slightly different in case of fire in the earth.
If we observe the flame of a candle closely, we can see two type of flame: the flame of the blue the outside and yellow flame part in.
The reason for this is the difference in the oxygen content and temperature. The blue region of the outer fire has the oxygen concentration is high due to the influx of fresh air from the surroundings. This makes it the region of the flame the hottest, where fuel is burned completely, so that only produces carbon dioxide and water as byproducts.
The flames from the explosion of mud volcanoes in the Caspian Sea.
The yellow areas, on the other hand, has a lower temperature and the oxygen level is low. This causes the combustion of the fuel that is not perfect and the formation of carbon particles that do not burn—called soot—along with carbon dioxide and water. Soot particles is then given energy by the heat and give the characteristic yellow color on fire.
Although not too common, blue fire can fully made in the earth. Things we have to do is point enough oxygen to the fire. Equipment such as bunsen burners and torches welding produces almost entirely blue fire by regulating the flow of oxygen and fuel carefully.
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