Burning Metal

Gray Matter
Send steel up in flames—as long as it's in wool form

by Mike Walker: Hot Steel: Set a steel-wool pad ablaze using an ordinary match.  Mike Walker
I was 10 years old, but I'll never forget that day: The smell of bread in the oven. The crunchy grit of steel wool in my fingers. The fact that my mom still left matches out where I could find them. That's when I learned that, yes, you can light steel with a match.

Weird as it seems, flammable metal isn't that rare-plasma cutting torches and magnesium photo flashes are two examples I've written about here. But you don't need anything fancy to send metal up in flames. Take a wad of steel wool (extra-fine 0000-grade works best), hold it in a pair of pliers, and light it with an ordinary match.

You won't get a big fireball, but it definitely burns-even faster if you blow on it. Bits of red-hot iron may fall to the ground, so do it outside and watch your feet.

If you can light steel wool with a match, why can't you light a nail? Or a cast-iron pot? It's a question of surface area versus volume. The burning process, which is just rapid oxidation of the metal, has to bring nearby iron to its ignition temperature fast enough to sustain a chain reaction. Thick pieces of iron conduct heat away far too fast for the surface to ever reach the ignition point. But in very thin strands, there's nowhere for the heat to go, and a burning patch can race along the length of wire, converting a whole steel-wool pad into iron oxide-rust-in less than a minute.

There isn't really a practical reason to burn steel wool (unless perhaps you were stuck in the woods with 50 pounds of it and a hot dog). But this form of rapid oxidation is similar to how cutting torches work. If your mom won't let you have one of those, this is the coolest way to watch something that seems unburnable go up in flames.

Lighting Steel Wool


Cost: $2
Time: 2 Minutes
Safe | | | | |
Crazy



Achtung!

Do this experiment outdoors, and always wear appropriate safety gear. Children should not attempt this experiment without adult supervision. Find more on Gray's scientific pursuits at periodictabletable.com and at popsci.com/graymatter.

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1 Comment

kardelen133 (not verified)

Where can I get the blocks?

I agree, this is a evden eve nakliyat very cool experiment. As to how long evden eve the acrylic can hold the image, permanently. If you mean nakliyat how long the lightening flashes, I would imagine until the block is grounded, the flashes would persist.

I would imagine evden eve nakliyat that on could generate a fair amount su deposu of income selling these su deposu Lichtenberg figures.
1 out of 1 people estetik found this comment helpful ankara nakliyat
there are many nakliyat lichtenberg figures estetik on the ice near my ankara nakliyat home and they are not drain holes. They are merely the first places that the sun melts the ice,
evden eve usually caused by something evden eve nakliyat dark at the center which heats up and starts the melting. I have 40mg of pix if pop sci is interested.

thanks.

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