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Interesting fact of the day. Water will "catch fire" when used on anything over about 2,200 C.
You can observe this if you take red hot metal and dip it in water, you will see flames produced and even explosions.
The reason is because at those temperatures the water disassociates and hydrogen and oxygen is produced that then reignites turning back into water and producing flame.
In fact particularly hot fires can not be extinguished with water as the water will convert into hydrogen so quickly it will literally just cause an explosion.
@Extelec No the reaction cant be sustained. IT takes more energy to dissociate the water then you get back from the flame. So it ultimately cools the object and onc eit drops below 2200 the flames will stop.
@freemo I thought that was the case, shame though :)
@freemo Usually needs to be a little more yellow than red, but you do see in when working steel.
@SteelFolk The specific color would depend on the metal to some degree, but yea it would look yellowish-red for sure for steel at least.
@freemo There are not many that you could get to that temp without melting, including steel. It's when we use steam it happens most.
@SteelFolk True, at that temperature the steel would be molten. But what i said would still be true other than the fact that the steel would be molten.
@freemo Yes, it is curious how steam seems to work better than water. I suspect it's more about heat transfer than anything else.
@SteelFolk Works better in what sense?
@freemo Makes flames with free gases. Water's funny stuff though, might be about the phase change allowing easier dissociation.
@freemo so the question is, can you sustain this reaction, or why can't you sustain this reaction ?