this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2023
927 points (97.5% liked)

memes

10226 readers
2430 users here now

Community rules

1. Be civilNo trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour

2. No politicsThis is non-politics community. For political memes please go to !politicalmemes@lemmy.world

3. No recent repostsCheck for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month

4. No botsNo bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins

5. No Spam/AdsNo advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live.

Sister communities

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oxygen isn't flammable, Oxygen is what reacts with the things that are flammable.

[–] Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If I remember my chemistry right, chlorine trifluoride would like to have a chat with you. It's such a powerful oxidizer that when burned with oxygen, the oxygen is actually the fuel rather than the oxidizer.

But then this is the stuff that the Nazis decided was too dangerous to use as rocket propellant, then decided it was too dangerous to use as a chemical weapon.

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

I don't want to chat with Chlorine Trifluoride, it's nasty.

But yeah, there are some obscure situations where oxygen isn't the oxidizing agent, but the name "oxidizer" gives a clue how rare that is. In most normal situations, oxygen is the oxidizer and the thing it reacts with is the fuel. Partially that's due to Oxygen being a good electron acceptor, but mostly it's because there's a lot of oxygen in the planet, and anywhere you can have humans you pretty much need to have oxygen.