Fire with ordinary things i.e. from ordinary air or anything

[mwaseema]

I got project from my school to do something really impressive. I want to make fire from ordinary things. Is it possible to get fire from air without using any inflammable thing?

Any reactions that can produce methane etc from ordinary things. Since methane is inflammable so it can get fire.

[swansont]

What in the air would you be burning? It's a combustion reaction, so you are combining something with oxygen and releasing energy. What is that something?

[mwaseema]

What in the air would you be burning? It's a combustion reaction, so you are combining something with oxygen and releasing energy. What is that something?

I just want to get any inflammable gas from air. Or any simple product. Any Reaction that can help???

[Enthalpy]

You can get flammable gas and liquids by pyrolysis of old tyres from instance. Not extremely surprising since tyres themselves burn easily. But it would be an introduction to a transformation many people would like to do (I mean, do properly, with no ugly leftovers).

 

Same with polyethylene and polypropylene garbage. Pyrolysis gives you flammable gas. Many studies try to make this useful.

 

Methanise grass and other vegetals in a bio-reactor. This looks more magic, since wet grass doesn't burn usually.

 

Show that metals burn in air if finely divided. Be careful, some are brutal.

 

Burn ordinary sugar (sucrose) in air using a catalyst.

 

Burn oil (vegetal, Diesel...) with a wick. Or more impressive, with an injector.

 

Put wax alight without a wick, by heating it. Caution: avoid moisture, and do NOT extinguish it with water; cap it instead.

[DevilSolution]

You can make a very basic explosion using something like flour given an ignition, that would probably be impressive. Its possible to turn bio-waste (poo) into flammable gasses using a catalyst for decomposition, methane i presume, i can find the documentary if your interested enough.

[John Cuthber]

Wait for a thunderstorm (though even that is cheating: the energy comes from the sun)

[Iota]

Tissue paper + super-glue = heat and smoke. It gets very hot so you might be able to achieve fire. Word of warning: avoid breathing in the fumes, they're harmful.

[CaptainPanic]

It is not easy to make something turn into a flammable gas (luckily, or there would be a lot more houses on fire).

 

If you want to burn something, you need a fuel - usually something that contains carbon.

[Enthalpy]

Rice for instance does not burn in normal condition, but the thin layer of starch it deposits in a pan during cooking burns easily. It's a matter of thickness mainly.

[EdEarl]

Unusual: Steel (iron actually) wool burns (not the stainless steel stuff); rather, the kind that is gray and very fine.