Sunday, January 4, 2009

Extinguishing fires

Water has a high heat of vaporization and is relatively inert, which makes it a good fire extinguishing fluid. The evaporation of water carries heat away from the fire. However, water cannot be used to fight fires of electric equipment, because impure water is electrically conductive, or of oils and organic solvents, because they float on water and the explosive boiling of water tends to spread the burning liquid.

Decomposition of water may have played a role in the Chernobyl disaster. Initially, cooling of the incandescent reactor was attempted, but the result was an explosion, when the extreme heat caused water to flash into steam, thus leading to a steam explosion; it may also have decomposed water into hydrogen and oxygen, which subsequently exploded.

Posted by susbarg at 18:51:20
Comments

3 Responses to “Extinguishing fires”

  1. dolce bag says:

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  3. hgadvdf says:

    I agree with your views on the matter.

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