Spontaneous combustion
Encyclopedia : S : SP : SPO : Spontaneous combustion
Spontaneous combustion can have several meanings:
- The self-ignition, or apparent self-ignition, and burning of any mass; often of highly flammable materials, such as a pile of oily rags; see combustion.
- Spontaneous human combustion is the alleged phenomenon of a human being suddenly bursting into flames.
- Pyrophoric materials can ignite spontaneously under certain conditions:
- *Some types of coal are susceptible to spontaneous ignition.
- *Some alloys, such as ferrocerium for lighter "flints" and the hardened depleted uranium used in anti-armor weapons, have a low ignition temperature when finely divided. Scraping such an alloy tends to create a large number of sparks, and pulverizing it can lead to a fierce metal fire.
- *Other substances such as caesium, rubidium or silanes can ignite spontaneously when contacting air. See pyrophoricity.
- *Sodium metal ignites spontaneously when placed in water.
In popular culture
- "Spontaneous Combustion" is an episode of the South Park television series.
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.
