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Combustion, or burning, [ 1] is a high-temperature exothermic redox chemical reaction between a fuel (the reductant) and an oxidant, usually atmospheric oxygen, that produces oxidized, often gaseous products, in a mixture termed as smoke. Combustion does not always result in fire, because a flame is only visible when substances undergoing ...
Heat of combustion. The heating value (or energy value or calorific value) of a substance, usually a fuel or food (see food energy ), is the amount of heat released during the combustion of a specified amount of it. The calorific value is the total energy released as heat when a substance undergoes complete combustion with oxygen under standard ...
A chemical reaction is a process that leads to the chemical transformation of one set of chemical substances to another. [ 1] When chemical reactions occur, the atoms are rearranged and the reaction is accompanied by an energy change as new products are generated. Classically, chemical reactions encompass changes that only involve the positions ...
The fire triangle or combustion triangle is a simple model for understanding the necessary ingredients for most fires. [ 1] The triangle illustrates the three elements a fire needs to ignite: heat, fuel, and an oxidizing agent (usually oxygen ). [ 2] A fire naturally occurs when the elements are present and combined in the right mixture. [ 3]
Spontaneous combustion or spontaneous ignition is a type of combustion which occurs by self-heating (increase in temperature due to exothermic internal reactions ), followed by thermal runaway (self heating which rapidly accelerates to high temperatures) and finally, autoignition. [ 1] It is distinct from (but has similar practical effects to ...
In the Arrhenius model of reaction rates, activation energy is the minimum amount of energy that must be available to reactants for a chemical reaction to occur. [ 1] The activation energy ( Ea) of a reaction is measured in kilojoules per mole (kJ/mol) or kilocalories per mole (kcal/mol). [ 2] Activation energy can be thought of as the ...
A related term is the heat of combustion, which is the chemical energy released due to a combustion reaction and of interest in the study of fuels. Food is similar to hydrocarbon and carbohydrate fuels, and when it is oxidized, its energy release is similar (though assessed differently than for a hydrocarbon fuel — see food energy).
Catalytic combustion. Catalytic combustion is a chemical process which uses a catalyst to speed desired oxidation reactions of fuel and so reduce the formation of undesired products, especially pollutant nitrogen oxide gases (NO x) far below what can be achieved without catalysts. The process was discovered in the 1950s by Catalytic Combustion LLC.