Is Fire Matter Or Not? (Updated By Enlightened Wisdom: Smart SCIENCE)
This question will strike the mind when we know what exactly is fire itself. If we talk about ancient elements, then water is today referred to as liquid state of matter, then earth is today referred to as solid state of matter and air is today referred to as gaseous state of matter.
But do you remember, that even FIRE was also considered to be an element back in those days? Fire as we know is not really an element. But what state of matter does it exists in? For that, we first need to know what fire exactly is. We know that fire is a bright hot flame thingy that we see on candles or on something burning. But there are some objects that burn but without flame. There are a lot of examples for this. Like: Incense sticks, iron etc. They burn without any flame. This clearly shows that fire isn't just the flames that you see.
Fire is when a fuel ignites in a presence of oxygen. Simply put, for a fire to start off, you need three basic things or what's popularly called the "Fire Triangle". The fire triangle contains 3 things: Fuel, Oxygen and Heat.
Fuel: Fuel is the thing that you give for a fire to exist upon. Simply put, fire needs something to burn, right? Let's say you want to burn wood for heat. In this case, the wood that you are sacrificing is the fuel as it is burned to produce fire. Now, when we think about fuels, what comes to our minds is some gasoline, petroleum, coal etc. But you know what, there are a lot more criteria for fuels. Anything to be a fuel, needs to have carbon atoms. Not all carbon allotropes can be fuels, but only some. Wood has carbon in it. If you didn't already knew about how wood catches fire, then I highly recommend you to read this article: How Does Wood Catches Fire? | Science Specials Week S01 E10.
Oxygen: Fire needs oxygen as well. Without it, it would not exist. When fuel burns, it reacts with the surrounding oxygen to create fire. This process is called oxidation.
Heat: Heat is the third thing that is needed for a fire to start. Common sense, right? Without heat, how can there be a fire? Heat is just the kinetic energy of particles and when we produce enough kinetic energy to an object, it starts burning or creating what's called fire. For example, you strike matchsticks off the matchbox and there you go, you get a bright flame.
As we know, that fire starts when a fuel ignites in the presence of oxygen. This ignition sets off a series of chemical reactions that eventually produce heat and light. The bright flame thing that you see depends on the fuel you are using. Now, when we look at the flame, we'll get to know that it is actually a stream of hot gases that get released continuously.
So, therefore, technically, fire itself is not a matter, but it is a process. But there is a catch, flames are composed of matter! Are flames plasma? But, wait, what is plasma itself? See, we know that there are 3 basic states of matter. Solids, liquids and gases. There is a fourth state of matter known as "Plasma" which we don't really see in our day to day lives but do experience it. Let us take an example. There are a lot of atoms in the tube light of your house. The moment you press the button ON, electricity surges through the tube light, the molecules eject electrons and convert into a cloud of gas. And now, this gaseous cloud of ions and electrons is the state of plasma! Really interesting.
And of course, apart from this, there are many ways through which electrons can be ejected from gases. When you heat a gas to a few thousand degrees above zero, and since the flame is hot enough, its gases start to ionize and eject electrons. And THAT flame would be in the Plasma state, the fourth state of matter. A flame could be hot enough to actually be plasma. There are a lot of examples for the fourth state of matter. Lightning, Aurorae, Solar winds, Tails of comets, Earth's ionosphere and even Stars! Yes, the cores of stars.
So, now we know that fire itself is a process and not matter. Whereas flames are made up of GASES. Yes, they are made by the combustion of various gases. I recommend you to read my post on combustion to have a better view: Types Of Combustion. Flames, if they can be hot enough with like a few thousand degrees, then they can be Plasma. Yes, flames can be Plasma, a mix of ions and electrons.
So, I guess now you know a lot about what is fire itself, is it a state of matter or not, and about plasma and its misconception about fire. Now you know, what it needs for something to actually be a PLASMA.
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