Why does the water not burn?

Asking this question seems a bit redundant. Water does not burn, everyone knows. But why does the water not burn, which is not a easy question to answer.

To clearly answer this question, we must first understand what fire is?

Usually combustion is the chemical reaction of substances with oxygen. There are substances at room temperature that also burn when exposed to oxygen. White phosphorus is an example. There are substances like coal (mainly composed of carbon), hydrogen, sulfur, at normal temperatures when exposed to oxygen, there is no reaction, but when the temperature increases, they will ignite.

Picture 1 of Why does the water not burn?
Water is made up of two elements, hydrogen and oxygen.

On the outside, alcohol, gasoline, kerosene, water are all transparent liquids, very similar. But alcohol is made up of three elements carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and gasoline and kerosene made up of two elements carbon, hydrogen. Most carbon-containing materials are combustible.

Alcohol, gasoline, kerosene has one carbon atom combined with two oxygen atoms to form carbon dioxide molecules. The hydrogen atoms combine with oxygen to form water molecules and thus the above compounds burn.

At this point, you all know why water does not burn.Water is made up of two elements hydrogen and oxygen , resulting from the combustion of the element hydrogen. Already a product of combustion, of course it could not possibly continue to combine with oxygen or in other words it could not burn again. With the same argument, carbon dioxide is the end product of combustion so carbon dioxide cannot be burnt any more. Because carbon dioxide does not sustain the burning, and has a heavier density than air, carbon dioxide is used to extinguish fires.

Of course, there are many types of matter that cannot be combined with oxygen, no matter how much the temperature is raised, they are just "good friends" of oxygen. These materials are non-flammable substances.

  1. Why can water stop firing?
  2. Why not fire itself off?