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Assume there was no combustion...


Tex

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(Off topic: Wow, you guys must love my questions. over a thousand views each, whew! :confused:)

Assume that no object could combust/burn/flagrate. Also, ignore the obvious side effects (no more cars, etc.). Would it be possible to melt inanimate objects that would previously burn when heated sufficiently? Could I, in theory, stick a notebook in my oven and have it melt to a notebook-flavored liquid? Also, what side would go best with a Notebook sin Fuego beverage?

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In principle, the notebook is already "molten". It's made up of organic polymers that are all tangled up with each other (i.e. it's not a crystalline solid). When you heat it up, rather than untangling the polymers, you'll sooner break the intra-molecular chemical bonds and your "melt" would actually be a vapor chemically very different from the initial notebook. This is very much unlike simpler compounds which when heated first break their crystal structure, but each molecule in a melt and further on in a vapor retains the original chemical composition. You can also heat up some thermoplastic plastics and see, that they don't really have a fixed melting point, they just gradually get softer as they warm up.

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Depends on how you stop the combustion.

Combustion is a chemical reaction. So if you say "Things can no longer combust" why is that? Is it because chemical reactions completely stopped? Or is it simply because you do your experiments in an environment without oxygen?

If it is the former heating your notebook will slowly excite the molecules more and more until it eventually becomes fully liquid. However, your notebook is a mixture of different kinds of molecules, so different parts will melt at different points. Furthermore, your notebook is technically already liquid since it is made of organic polymers. This means it consists of a bunch of long chains that are so tangled with one another that they appear solid. polymers have a whole host of interesting states depending on temperature and pressure. I suspect a text book would become rubbery before it melts and then get an ever lower viscosity as it heats up. It would also outgas a lot of the lighter molecules, so if you cool it later on it'll probably feel a lot more like hard plastic (those small molecules act as lubricants so the material remains supple).

If chemical reactions are still possible and you're just heating stuff in a oxygen free environment the molecules will fall apart long before you even get close to the melting point. The notebook will eventually liquify, but it will be a unrecognizable puddle of organic compounds.

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  Ralathon said:
Depends on how you stop the combustion.

I apologize. My question if everything else in the physical universe remained completely unaffected, with the exception of no more fire. Rust is still okay, so I'm not ruling out ALL oxidation.

Plus, nobody has yet come up with a good side for a melted notebook drink yet! :P

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It is impossible to melt cellulose (paper) under any pressure. It's a highly complex D-glucose polymer.

cellulose.png

It will just decompose to various organic compounds, carbon and water, depending on the temperature. You can actually see that for yourself. Wrap some paper in aluminium foil so that air can't easily get inside and then heat it with a flame. Disgusting tar-like fluid will form and toxic vapors will ooze out. They're flammable.

What happens to a compound at elevated temperatures (assuming it's not exposed to a reactant) depends on its composition and pressure.

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As a fireman, I find this pretty depressing because I'd be out of a job :). But then human society wouldn't exist to need firemen because without fire, we'd still be monkeys.

But then again, there wouldn't be any monkeys either, nor anything else whose body chemistry relies on oxygen. The only life possible would be anaerobes. This is because all critters with hemoglobin and related things have to "burn" iron to live. Our blood is red because it's rusty; all that oxidized iron in it. And that's the thing. Combustion is oxidation. If you can't have combustion, you can't have oxidation going on.

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the only way to prevent combustion is to turn off somehow all fast gas phase exothermic reactions. which can not be achieved without turning off most of the reactions that happen in the liquid phase inside of a cell as well and thus ending all life instantaneously. or completely re-inventing a different chemistry and radically different laws of physics. you could as well as delete this universe and create another one...

Edited by MBobrik
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