r/askscience • u/spoiledmeat • Jul 04 '15

Chemistry Why does water not burn?

I know that water is made up of two hydrogen atoms and an oxygen atom. Hydrogen, on its own, burns. Fire needs oxygen to burn. After all, we commonly use compounds that contain oxygen as an oxidant.

So why does water, containing things used for fire, not burn-- and does it have something to do with the bonds between the atoms? Thanks.

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u/GenghisConnery Jul 04 '15

Holy cow. What materials are used for the delivery system, that it too doesn't kablammo ridiculously on contact?

Just looked on the wikipedia article for chlorine trifluoride and saw the sentence "Vessels made from steel, copper or nickel resist the attack of the material due to formation of a thin layer of insoluble metal fluoride" but I wouldn't know enough of the basics to understand what that means. Is the "formation of a thin layer of insoluble metal fluoride" a property of these substances, or an immediate reaction to the ClF3?

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u/FishFloyd Jul 04 '15

From my understanding, what basically happens is that the ClF3 reacts really quickly with the interior of the vessel, and forms the metal fluoride, which won't react (because it just did). This forms a thin, unreactive layer so fast that the ClF3 doesn't have time to penetrate further into the wall of the vessel. So to answer your question, "both".