Flammable water question

[tomgwyther]

Today, I found myself working in a commercial kitchen, I used to be a bar/restaurant manager and so occasionally help out old work colleagues.

Whilst standing in-front of the gas stove, I accidentally spilled some water onto the lit gas burner ring, which spontaneously combusted in a bright orange flame.

Intrigued, I repeated splashing water onto the flame and each time, the same resultant orange flame occurred. Sometimes the flame would be nearly eight inches high.

There were no other flammable substances on the stove, so why the combustion?

The only explanation I could think of would be that the hydrogen and oxygen were somehow separated by the heat of the flame so as the hydrogen would combust and the oxygen give it its orange hue.

The only other factor which may, or may not be of relevance would be the aluminium foil underneath the gas burner. I've fuelled a camp fire for hours with empty beer cans before; the fire had to be extremely hot though.

So, how or why is water combustible?

[Greippi]

How strange, if the flames had merely changed colour it would be more explainable, but since you observed an 8 inch flame, that's weird.

The most likely explanation would be some sort of contaminent such as cleaning product in the water. If it was salt water then it would most likely be down to the sodium, even though this sounds a bit strange as I would imagine the concentration of sodium would be very low.

 

 

However, I have heard of engines that somehow produce superheated steam and can produce an orange flame (presumably this would be combustion of hydrogen) but I have no idea how it works or if it is in fact possible. I would assume that this requires specialised apparatus and I seriously doubt this happened here.

[Horza2002]

I extremely doubt that the water lysed under those conditions. What probably happened was that the water boiled instanly which expanded and blew the flame outwards like a gust of wind moves a flame.

 

The orange colour is most likely a result of the presence of sodium ion in the water...sodium has a characterisc orange glow to it

[SH3RL0CK]

My theory is that what is happening is that the addition of water is affecting the stovetop flame. It cools the flame down, resulting in the color going from blue to orange. And it can cool it down such that parts of the burning area is extenguished, only to be reignited once the methane has migrated (hence the 8 inch flame).

 

No need to invoke strange chemical reactions for an explaination.