Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material. Water is 2 hydrogen and 1 oxygen. Every molecule is fully oxidized. It’s also a common byproduct of fire. Therefore, you can’t burn it, because it’s already burnt

  • brygphilomena@lemmy.world
    57·
    2 years ago

    Oh man… Wait until you hear about fires hot enough that if you put water on then, it breaks the water molecule and the hydrogen molecules cause an explosion.

    Look up class D fires.

    • Troy@lemmy.ca
      27·
      2 years ago

      Furthermore, you can burn water with a strong enough oxidizer. Oxygen, despite lending its name to the word “oxidize”, is not the best oxidizer out there. That belongs to things with fluorine in it. You can burn water with pure fluorine gas to produce hydrogen fluoride and oxygen.

      Don’t try this at home. Both fluorine and the resulting HF is deadky.

      HF is itself a super nasty piece of work – a deadly acid that seeps through your skin and kills you from the inside.

      • Bryan Elliott@programming.devEnglish
        10·
        2 years ago

        The fun part about that: you can burn hydrogen with fluorine because fluorine is the best oxidizer; it’s then deadly (and caustic) because hydrogen is not the best reducer - it’s both an oxidizer and a reducer and, as a result, it’s basically middle-of-the-road for both properties. Specifically, most metals are better. So the HF will happily drop its hydrogen for many metals to oxidize (fluoridate) them instead. Lead, iron, zinc, aluminum, magnesium, and lithium will each make a way more stable fluoride than does hydrogen.

        In solution (say, if you inhale HF, it’ll dissolve into the moisture in your lungs), it breaks apart into H⁺ and F⁻ ions - both of which are just straight-up electrochemically promiscuous. The pair’ll run through your lungs breaking up organic bonds like couples at an orgy.

        Even so, HF doesn’t hold a candle in terms of danger (and oxidation potential) compared to fluorine peroxide / dioxygen difluoride / FOOF.

    • 𝒍𝒆𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒏@lemmy.one
      4·
      2 years ago

      There was some other thread talking about invisible fire produced by burning a particular gas… imagine getting burned and not being able to identify the source

  • ihwip@lemmy.world
    15·
    2 years ago

    Water is also hydrogen and oxygen floating around in a sea where they are constantly switching partners. An orgy if you will.

  • gmtom@lemmy.world
    41·
    2 years ago

    Reminds me of a joke me and my freinds made about a hipster restaurant that sells “deconstructed water” that’s just a balloon filled with hydrogen and a match.

  • roguetrick@kbin.social
    11·
    2 years ago

    Reddit hasn’t had a quality shower thought like this on the front page in years. Well done fediverse.

    • Gork@lemm.ee
      1·
      2 years ago

      Any time I tried to post a shower thought on Reddit it was deleted because it either was posted previously (at any point in time, even if it was years ago) or was posted somewhere else online, not just Reddit, also at any point in time.

      Nuts.