Seriously why does water not burn. Two hydrogen atoms (rocket fuel) and one oxygen (also rocket fuel).?

Answer 1

When hydrogen burns, it produces water. That's the end result of the burning process. It would be like you saying, seriously, why can't we cook already cooked bread to get fresh bread. You already cooked it, it's not going to change anymore.
Water also doesn't break apart into it's individual atoms very easily. You either need electricity or heat hotter than the sun. But if you do break it up, yep, it'll burn. But it's not water then, it's 2 hydrogens and an oxygen. And when it burns it'll make water.

Answer 2

The 'fire triangle' says three things are required for fire: - Fuel, Heat & Oxygen. These are always required. Most rockets still use Hydrogen Peroxide. The oxygen is chemically locked within the H2O2 molecule and can therfore burn without air as the oxygen is actually locked within it's own fuel. The higher the oxygen content, the more vigerous the burn. It can be explosive - even without air Hydrogen peroxide has been used to fuel torpedos obviously due to lack of air when propelling the torpedo. The russian submarine the Kursk used these types of torpedo, but as the fuel can be volatile it was the cause of the explosion that led to the loss of the sub

Answer 3

Water doesn't burn because it's already burnt.

Oh, sure, it doesn't look burnt. Nonetheless, it's one of the chief products of combustion. Light a candle, gas jet, whatever, and what do you get? Mainly carbon dioxide and water. We started off with a hydrocarbon and the hydrogen oxidized. The result is water, a substance far more stable and thus less flammable than an unburnt mixture of hydrogen and oxygen.

Still, if you try hard enough you can get even water to burn. Try torching the stuff in the presence of fluorine gas. You get a nice hot flame that produces oxygen and hydrogen fluoride, which are more stable than water plus fluorine. That's about as simple as I can make it, pal. Hope it brings you inner peace.

Answer 4

The water in bipolar nature. The hydrolysis (splitting of water into two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen) requires very high amout of energy. Suppose, assume that one litre of water burns, the heat energy or any energy librated from this process is not sufficient for hydrolysis of the same quantity of water. To that extent, the hydrogen atoms attached to one oxygen atom with greate affinity. So some energy balance is existing in the water to remain as water (ice and steam also) always. Another thing, oxygen supports the burning process but it does not burn itself. If any carbon atom exists in the water molecule, definitely water can catch fire like petrol or diesel. Even burning of hydrogen produces water as end product.

Answer 5

There are several way to look at this.

The first is that, as others have mentioned, water is a product in the chemical combustion reaction, not a reactant. This means that burning produces water rather than using it.

A second approach relies upon the basic fact that physical processes seek to achieve the state of lowest possible energy. Now, combustion entails the reaction of oxygen with some molecule to produce other (usually smaller) molecules at a lower energy. So the problem with combusting water is this: the free energy of water is lower than any molecule that would be produced by reaction with oxygen. You could propose a reaction wherein water and oxygen react to form oxygen and hydrogen, but H2 and O2 have a higher combined free energy than H2O and oxygen. This is why hydrogen and oxygen combust to form water. The process could be reversed, but this is not combustion, it is electrolysis. Furthermore, it consumes vast amounts of energy rather than releasing it. You could also propose that H2O could react with oxygen to produce H2O2, hydrogen peroxide. Again, H2O2 has a higher energy than H2O + Oxygen. This is why hydrogen peroxide is stored in brown bottles: light triggers the spontaneous decomposition of hydrogen peroxide into water and oxygen.

So basically the answer is this: water can in theory react with oxygen, but such a process would not be combustion. It would actually consume energy, and as such would not be 'burning' as we define it.

Answer 6

Because water is the end result after burning the hydrogen and oxygen rocket fuel.

It's the same thing as asking "why don't the ashes of a campfire burn?" Because they're already burnt.

Answer 7

WE KNOW THAT HYDROGEN BRUNS IN AIR AND OXYGEN SUPPORTS THE COMBUSTION BUT A COMPOUND WATER WHICH IS MADE OF HYDROGEN AND OXYGEN DOES NOT BURN BECAUSE WATER IS A COMPOUND AND THE PROPERTY OF A COMPOUND IS EXTREMELY DIFFERENT FROM ITS CONSTITUTE ELEMENTS.IT IS ALSO DUE TO THE ARRANGEMENT IN THE ATOM OF THE HYDROGEN AND OXYGEN WHICH IS COMBINED TOGETHER AT 108POINT 7 DEGREE.

Answer 8

only pure oxygen and pure hydrogen burn as rocket feul.
when the two mix it creates a neautral effect thus not burning.
think about why salt is not poisionous even though the elements of sodium and chlorine are very dangerous in their pure state, but when the two mix it create a neutral effect

Answer 9

Once Hydrogen and Oxygen have formed their physical state of being a liquid prevents burning. Once a aliquid you can't simply remove the oxygen and make it a gas again!

Answer 10

For water to burn, it will have to either add oxygen atoms or break up and form with oxygen atoms, either way is a waste of energy, so it doesn't happen.