Yes, H2 has a blue white flame, and sodium orange. Chlorine burns vomit green. The burning saltwater is the sodium burning. Of course anything that burns will cause explosions if you contain the fire like in a stick of dynamite , a grenade, or a pringles can. I used to make cannons with rubbing alcohol, tennis balls and soda cans. Very effective. Sadly, Mythbusters sometimes promote myths rather than bust them, like making it seem like H2 is explosive. I've seen H2 fuel cells burn in crashes. The Hydrogen burns straight up like a candle. Sodium and Potassium are highly volatile. Potassium burns on contact with air (no need for any ignition). Hence it is used in incendiary bombs. Potassium is very dangerous stuff. Almost impossible to put out. You have to remove all the oxygen, hence you can't use water to put it out (well there is ONE way), it just burns the water releasing hydrogen which then burns also. Nice hunh?
--- Jeremy Fowler [email protected] wrote:
I was watching Mythbusters last night, and they were doing all kinds of explosive experiments. In one experiment, they made a Pringles can explode using hydrogen and leaving the chips fairly intact. One thing they pointed out was that Hydrogen, when it burns, has a clear, nearly invisible white flame. This got me thinking about the burning saltwater, which was an orange-yellow flame. So, its probably not the Hydrogen burning. So that got me wondering what was burning in that saltwater. Well, maybe its the salt I thought. Salt, Sodium chloride, is fairly inert. However, Sodium by itself is really active and quite explosive when it comes into contact with water. Here's a great site with a guy doing sodium experiments, including throwing it into water and burning it:
http://www.theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/Stories/011.2/
If you look at the sodium flame, its a similar orange-yellow flame in the saltwater experiments. So, it highly probable the RF is making the sodium in the water burn. So, what to you amateur chemists and physicists have to say about this? Is it still a possible fuel source if its only burning the sodium?