Why does wood get lighter when it burns?

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If you burn wood, it doesn't turn into much more than ashes. But how can that be? How can a heavy solid like wood turn into ash as a much lighter substance?

Are the end materials of the wood burning lighter than the raw material?
Are the end materials of the wood burning lighter than the raw material?

Chemical process of wood combustion

  • You are certainly aware that the combustion of wood, like the combustion of substances containing metal, for example, is referred to as a chemical reaction. Specifically, burns are exothermic redox reactions, which are primarily energy, Heat and light are given off.
  • The reaction equation of an oxidation in the above sense can be expressed chemically by the sum equation C + O2-> CO2. All combustible materials contain carbon, which reacts with the oxygen catalyst to form carbon dioxide during combustion.
  • When all the carbon molecules in a substance have been used up and, besides the carbon monoxide, as waste materials have given up the corresponding energy, the oxidation is complete and the starting material has changed in its shape changes.
  • When it burns, the solid wood turns into the much lighter substance ash, while with one Combustion of metals, in turn, creates a solid substance that hardly weighs anything against the weight of the starting material takes.

Is there a lighter substance when coal burns?

  • It can be stated in advance that the apparent end material of wood combustion is significantly lighter than the starting material. As noted above, ash is not as heavy as wood or charcoal.
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  • If you burn wood, the reaction products correspond exactly to the weight of the starting material. It must be noted that burning wood not only produces ash, but also a corresponding gas such as carbon dioxide.
  • If you were to burn the wood in a closed vessel and weigh it before and after the burn, you would can determine that the weight of the raw material does not change, but only split into visible and invisible mass Has.
  • The mass of all substances in your vessel is therefore a constant. In this sense, wood does not get lighter when you burn it, it just changes its shape and composition, whereby the still visible mass is ultimately lighter than the previously visible one. However, if you consider the sum of all reaction products, the weight always remains the same compared to the starting material of the combustion.

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