AboutRalph Salier-Hellendag Expertise Science Fair Judge for many years and experience with robotics, biology, chemistry, industrial processes, metalurgy and metal forming.
Experience Science Fair Judge for many years and have helped several students get to state level competition. Most recently 2 of my students received state level awards and one went on to the nationals in Washington DC.
Education/Credentials BA Archaeology - Anthropology
MA Business Anthropology
Question My 12yr old son wants to run a science experiment on testing the flammability of a variety of liquids, eg mthes, petrol, diesel, turpentine, alcohol. Can you offer suggestions how to carry this out at home. The first idea was to place the liguid into a small conatine and ignite it to see how quickly it burns, but it heating the liquid better and testing the time it takes to ignite?
Answer Hi Stephen,
This is not as easy as it may seem. Many of the liquids you indicate are not easily flamable due to very high "Flash Points". The best way to do this test is with a wick. If you can find an old fashioned glass bunsun burner with a wick coming out of the screw top, then you will have the appropriate tool for the test. But be warned, you will need a new wick for each liquid and it is a dangerous experiment at best. This is especially true for any alchohol or petrol since it is the vapor which is highly explosive and could feed into the container and potentially explode!!
If you were to place a match into a pool of cold petrol, it would snuff out the match!
This is, in my view, not a safe experiment for a youngster. There are too many things that can go wrong even with adult supervision. I don't think that I would even undertake such an experiment as an adult. This is especially true since I am not fully aware of all of the volatility of these liquids.
Perhaps you can do a similar experiment using Olive oil, canola oil, rendered fat, parafin wax, bees wax, motor oil, etc...
These can be placed into a small open container with a cotton or linen wick and then set alight. You can then test how long it takes to burn as well as the temperature of the flame to determine which burns the hottest. Hold the thermometer 2" above the top of the flame to get the highest temperature.
