this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2023
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Showerthoughts

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You can't burn water, because it's already burnt (lemmy.ml)
submitted 1 year ago by arcrust@lemmy.ml to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
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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

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[–] 1rre@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 1 year ago

Both contribute to the combustion, but it's the metal that's fuelling it while water plays the role that air/oxygen usually would. I think codyslab did a video where he had a flame fed by air in an atmosphere of methane which demonstrates the concept that actually you need both fuel and oxidiser for the flame, and one "burns" in an "inert" atmosphere of the other