does wood have a liquid state?

Question

you know how plastic has a solid/normal state, then a liquid state, and then it finally burns? does wood do the same thing. Odd question, i know.

Answer 1

Wood is not a pure substance. It is mostly cellulose, but there is water and a lot of other stuff mixed in there. The proportions of the components also vary from species to species.

One can only determine the temperature/pressure at which a substance changes phase if it is pure. There's no way to "purify" wood, since doing so would make it something other than wood.

I suppose that one could melt pure cellulose, the major component of wood, in the absence of oxidizing agents, but cellulose is a polymer of variable length and would therefore have a wide range of melting points.

So, while each component of wood has its own characteristic melting point, the complete mixture does not.

Interesting question!

Answer 2

Everything has it's melting point, but it's melting point is not nessasarily above it's burning point, the only way you could turn wood into a liquid is if you artificially changed the pressure around it

think of a graph with 2 intersecting lines, the intersection is the combination of ( / ) pressure & ( \ ) temperature

if you put wood in a chamber that can change it's atmosphereic pressure (the outside world is 1.0 Atmosphere (go fig ;)

you can slide it's melting point up and down the line, allowing you to create a liquad state of wood, this also applies to creating a gaseos state of wood, at higher temperatures or if you learned anything -- higher pressures ;)

or a combo of both

Plasma is the 4th state of matter that exsists at temps like the sun (100000/f), or pressures like a blackhole

Answer 3

Wood is made up of a mixture of complicated molecules, most of which decompose before they melt. If you heat it up in air, of course, it burns, but even in a vacuum those molecules will start coming apart and releasing various kinds of gas, including water vapor among other things. Eventually, after quite a long time, you'll be left with charcoal--a mix of mostly graphite with some other stuff that doesn't easily evaporate. Heat this enough in a vacuum, and it'll eventually melt (assuming you have a container that can hold liquid carbon!). But at that point it's not wood anymore.

Answer 4

The wood block is solid. A solid has a certain size and shape. The wood block does not change size or shape. Other examples of solids are the computer, the desk, and the floor.

You can change the shape of solids. You change the shape of sheets of lumber by sawing it in half or burning it.

Answer 5

this is a great question, the best ive seen here. any hoot no wood does not have a solid state. it will burn only. wood is dense. an interesting fact you would like to know, bing wood is from africa, it is very dense, and heavy. you could make a bullet proof vest out of it, its that dense. it also is called purple heart because of its dark color. if you can find it in the us, your going to pay out the pocket for it. its very expensive.

Answer 6

No, wood can't be melted. If it is heated in the presence of oxygen it will be oxidized and burn. If it is heated without oxygen it will lose Hydrogen and Oxygen out of the molecular structure and turn into that wonderful substance known as Charcoal. Eventually if heated enough, this would lose all of the Hydrogen and Oxygen and turn into Carbon black, which could then melt.

Answer 7

NO wood can`t be a Liquid

Answer 8

yes, but the conditions would be pretty hard to get to.

the better question would be:

if wood turned to liquid, would there be woodsuckers instead of woodpeckers?

Answer 9

Interesting topic!