Everyday Science: Starting fire with Steam 

I had no idea steam and water vapor were different things...

My HS chemistry teacher did this same demo, but he used a more narrow tube and created a coil with it. I suspect that if you heated a coil you would end up with a far higher temperature because you would have the torch effecting a much larger surface area compared to the ID of the tube.

That's pretty wild...I've never been around steam that hot before.

I wonder if you can sear steaks using superheated steam!

I think this is a very important video because I don't think the general public nowadays knows how dangerous steam can be.

I worked with similar principles daily for years while in the Navy. The ship I was assigned to was steam turbine driven, with a nominal steam pressure of 600 PSI (41 BAR) with superheat. This means that we generated steam at 600 PSI, then ran the steam back through superheater tubes in the firebox to raise the temperature. As the pressure goes up, so does the boiling point. The temperature of steam at 1 BAR is 100 C. The temperature of steam at 600 PSI/41 BAR is about 487 F/ 253 C. After running it through the superheater, we had steam at a working pressure of 600 PSI (41 BAR) at about 850 F/454 C. The interesting thing about steam is that the phase change from water to steam or steam to water takes additional heat. Once you heat 1 pound of water to 100 C, it takes an ADDITIONAL 970 BTUs to change that pound of water to a pound of steam at 100 C. That gives you 970 BTU of energy to use for something. As the steam leaves the nozzles in the turbine and hits the blades it loses energy and cools. The purpose of the superheat is to give you that much additional work as the temperature falls...even after losing 190 C of heat to performing work, there was still that 970 BTU left to be extracted before it became water again. This is VERY simplified overview of a subject upon which entire books have been written. As far as the video goes, know how to find a steam leak that is at 600 PSI, 850 F, and invisible to the naked eye? In all seriousness, with an old-fashioned straw broom which you wave in front of you. When half the bristles disappear and the rest catch fire, you have found your steam leak. We made our steam on a bit larger scale. We were running 32,000 HP / 24,000 kw of geared propulsion turbines, with enough steam left over to supply 8 mW electrical of turbine generators plus steam-driven auxiliary equipment, hot water, space heating, and galley services.

I'm happy you have another channel, it's just as fun as "Red". I've been doing what you do for decades and it doesn't get old. I also almost got into Chemical Engineering, but because of monetary issues earned a Masters in English and then became a Professional Bodyguard. But...chemistry has always pleased me. Thanks for the quality content.

so , i need a blowtorch to start a fire with steam, got it

I once burnt my finger when I was opening a water heater lid. I was confused back then as to how fast and painful steam can be if not careful. Thanks for the awesome vid!

It's really cool how the copper looks like steel or something shiny like that when it's being heated by the torch

Thank you for using SI units... You can make a video about the water's ability to solve things, depending on the temperature. I happened once to make tea with cold water and was amazed at how strange the water appeared before I realized it was cold!

Does hot water steam support a magnesium fire, even without oxygen?

You could use this to toast the perfect marshmallow

The ancient way to perform the water decomposition was passing steam through a red hot iron tube which catalysed the reaction. This method was used by Lavoiser to prove the oxigen against the phlogiston theory. It would be nice to watch such reaction.

I used to work at a potato chip and snack food manufacturing company in Topeka Kansas. If I recall correctly they had 460 PSI steam there that was used to heat the potato chip and snack food fryers. Not only will superheated steam get things hot enough to start fires if you give it to chance it will cool down enough about three or four feet from the nozzle and you can actually use it to put a fryer fire out. In this case the hood on the fryer has lowered down and the fryer is filled with steam to both cool and start the fire of oxygen. What's really interesting though it is the vent chimneys on those industrial dryers that are like the size of a trailer house get full of polymerized oil just like a creosote and a chimney. When one of those things lights on fire usually do to a fire in the fryer they burn like a solid-fuel rocket. One-time the fire department had to cut the chimney out of the roof lay it down inside the building and go at it from both ends with fire hoses.

This method of making a fire is like hitting 1 bird with 20 stones

I thought you said you’d leave a link to the “how water puts out fire” video in the description?

This is an amazing video. Thank you so much.

Amazing video! I had no idea you can do that

Brooooo you blew my mind on water vapour and steam

Nice video. Maybe you can do a series of videos on ignition in unusual ways and fire in general. (For example, you can show where the hottest place in a fire is, because many people think it's somewhere in the middle because it's much brighter there)

Thank you! Cool video :)

Ah god damn you got me with the end video ad again I keep thinking more is coming

The heat blued copper is such a nice hue or indigo, like gunblue.

Nice video on superheated steam. Normal steam is saturated so forms the aerosol most know. Super heat it then things get more interesting not to mention dangerous precisely because you can't see it.

Hi Nile, can you do a video on pyrolysis? Can it be a method to break down plastics without burning it? Would it still release volatile toxic substances and to what extent?

"thinking quickly, nigel creates fire using only a flask of water, some copper, and a fire"

Nile Green Is People!

0:57 You had the physics wrong this time. By Bernoulli's principle when you have gas flowing at equilibrium, regions of the gas at higher pressure move at lower speed and vice versa. Therefore you are speeding up the vapor not slowing it down.

so thats why when I lower the temperature on the stove it makes more mist

Ah, very cool!!!

My man is an alchemist

Could it be possible to make charcoal using super heated steam and wood ?

also a video on chemicals like chlorine triflouride would be awesome

Very interesting video.

Steam is a form of water vapor. When water vapor becomes visible, it is an aerosol, common clouds are a good example. Water vapor is the most predominate greenhouse gas in the Troposphere, thanks to its triatomic molecule and multiple modes of vibration. While carbon dioxide is also a triatomic species, it has only two vibration modes and both are stretch so it's IR spectra is quite narrow.

Getting my fireman's ticket the hardest thing for me to wrap my head around was the idea of "dry steam". I mean, my whole life I was told that steam is the same as water vapor, and if you put something in it, that object will get wet. After breaking that falsehood stuff like this doesn't even surprise me anymore.

You should use a thermal camera.

Nile, would it be possible to do a video about why shaking a match / a stick that is on fire puts it out? Thanks :)

could you make charcoal this way? I know they use steam to turn regular charcoal into the "activated" variety, but could you just cut out the middle man?

Steam doesn’t sound like a word anymore 🤣

the fire is put out not because the lack of oxygen, but there are too many h2o. Same as co2, it's on the right side of the combustion equation and can stop the chemical reaction.

"how to start a fire with steam" First you are gonna need some fire to make steam

So a lit match could be submerged briefly into a liquid with a different hear capacity than water, and it wouldn't go out or would reignite straight away when removed?

Playing steam games on a potato pc can also start fire too

Am I the only one surprised that Nile's matches are made of paper? We have only wooden matches here.

Can you substitute that match with Magnesium, i think it would be a nice demonstration ???

Using blowtorch fire to generate steam to ignite fire.

would probably be a bit more efficient to heat the top of the tube

Awesome

Me: 'Indeed, with this I shall set fire to the oceans!' BP: 'Thank you kind sir for holding my flagon of ale, now go home and sleep, for tomorrow you work for me!'

So..... we used a torch to light up a match, in the most inefficient way possible, basically? Loved it.

In french, steam is vapeur... so vapour is... vapeur. XD

why is the tube still shiny and grey right where the flame is? does it not oxidize until it cools?

'Doesn't matter what medium' What if there's no medium? Try starting a fire in space lmao

can i copy this for my science fair project?

I just understood why the use steam to make active carbon. Couldn’t grasp the idea before

Fun fact: humid air is less dense than normal air

gotta love snoopa vision XD april fools ery body

This would be really good for producing char cloth.

Real question: can you now roast a marshmallow a perfect brown without burning it

Would be super cool to coat the paper with oxidizing agent like KMnO₄ and put it in the steam and see if it ignites. Might be dangerous, though.

I started fire using only a stick, some steam and a fire!

seems like a reliable way to cook marshmallows without burning it since it doesn't have enough oxygen to burn.

That’s really high e-steem 🤣💨

Is there not a chance that in this particular experiment the blowtorch is heating the air inside the tube to the 350-400 degrees and the pressure from the boiling water is moving this hot air which ignites the match?

Steam is quite visible above 600 C Also terrifying

Superheated steam, as used in Steam Locomotives.

Firefighter here, this also proves the misconception of "it's the fires that makes fire spread", it's not the fire, the majority comes from the heat of the smoke

Best chemical ways how to remove dirt from something precious :)

You could also start fire with the blow torch you're using there.... geniuses.

I'm a bit confused at the constriction of the copper tube. Wouldn't reducing cross sectional area increase velocity of the steam rather than slowing it down?

So you use a ton of energy on the hot plate and gas burner to ignite a match... yeah, makes sense *d'oh*

I was under the impression that crimping in only one location actually speeds up the air in that location and doesn't affect anywhere else

Heat from fire, fire from heat

does white phosporus burn in the steam? or at lest what happens does it melt???

Why point the match downward from above the hot steam!?! Point it up! Up! Oh, Nile. Anyway, thank you for another invaluable education.

Heat from fire. Fire from heat.

If you can get the steam heat up to 451F you can ignite the paper...😁

Steam past 460 C will light paper. With O2

But crimping the tubing actually speeds up the steam

Didn't know this existed (Nile Blue)

Wouldn't you get nearly the same effect if you were just blowing air through the tube? With the torch so close to the opening, it's basically a heat gun

Do it with stream of Oxygen also running through the steam

What’s causing the iridescent effect on the tubing?

Why does the copper tubing change color when the flame is applied? Are the electrons in the copper moved to an excited state by the energy from the flame? Or am I thinking in the wrong area?

Can you super heat oxygen like this and have explosive combustion at the end?

Would you call that starting the fire with steam?

I'm not a steam engineer or anything but it seems like it would be the steam that's the carrier of the heat from the torch w/ it being such a short system.... 🤔 LoL

I thought he sounded different than I noticed the video was made five years ago

just see this on ri channel but nice video too :)

That a copper rod?why does it change color when exposed to heat?

How to start a fire with water step 1 grab your blowtorch

Why does the copper turn grey?

starting firefox with steam

Then there's this channel. Mate, why'd ya not tell me D:

Video should be titled making fire with fire

Why does the copper change color when you heated it with a torch?

I seen the Fluke~

Water vapor = steam (steam is the h2o gas right?)