# Can you melt wood? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 11, 2012, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-melt-wood/634411 "2012-09-11T17:32:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2012, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-melt-wood/634411/21 "2012-09-11T23:25:57Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > Even in a vacuum, wood won’t melt. It will decompose first. > [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > not necessarily a vacuum, but any non-oxidizing atmosphere. This was an experiment in my ninth-grade science class, the [destructive distillation of wood.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destructive_distillation) We packed a test tube with wood splints, and stoppered it with a glass tube leading through the stopper and then passing through a cooling bath. A burner under the test tube cooked the wood; the tiny bit of oxygen in there was soon consumed and replaced with CO2 and other wood combustion products, and then - with no more oxygen available - the wood began decomposing into some interesting chemicals that distilled out as combustible liquids and gases after passing through the cooling bath. > > But it never did recondense as wood. We definitely were not melting or vaporizing wood. > > **El\_Kabong** has it: every element has a melting point, but not every compound does. Cecil did cover that, though. He explained that if you heat wood in a vacuum, you’ll vaporize the water and other volatile components first, then the remaining ash will melt, and finally the carbon will melt. I’d say that counts as melting wood, even if you couldn’t get the wood back from it! Surely if you melt every component of the wood, you’ve melted the wood, right? You wouldn’t say you can’t melt bronze because the copper and tin separate, would you? ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-melt-wood/634411/22 "2012-09-12T01:37:29Z")
Isn’t it good? ---
**Author:** ![Anaglyph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Anaglyph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaglyph)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-melt-wood/634411/23 "2012-09-12T15:01:59Z")
> [@Alan\_Smithee](#): > > Cecil did cover that, though. He explained that if you heat wood in a vacuum, you’ll vaporize the water and other volatile components first, then the remaining ash will melt, and finally the carbon will melt. I’d say that counts as melting wood, even if you couldn’t get the wood back from it! Surely if you melt every component of the wood, you’ve melted the wood, right? You wouldn’t say you can’t melt bronze because the copper and tin separate, would you? Yes, but the carbon atoms in wood were present as cellulose and lignin, which decompose to carbon, carbon monoxide and water before they melt. While bronze is a mixture whose components may unmix, but do not undergo a chemical transformation upon melting, the molecules in wood break up and recombine to form different, simpler molecules. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-melt-wood/634411/24 "2012-09-12T15:24:36Z")
melting is a physical process giving a phase transition, it is reversible. a looser definition would be turning a solid into a liquid. heating wood would drive off water vapor (which you would have to condense to get liquid) and then drive off some organic compounds as vapor (which you would have to condense to get liquid). solid components would become charcoal if oxygen wasn’t present for combustion. either way you get a chemical change through combustion or pyrolysis. ---
**Author:** ![Michael63129](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3da27b/32.png) [@Michael63129](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael63129)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-melt-wood/634411/25 "2012-09-12T15:46:06Z")
I’m curious about where the [stated figure](http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_melting_point_of_wood) of 9345.8 °C for the theoretical melting point of wood comes from (searching for this number and wood only gives a bunch of results which are all really the same page). They also claim that wood _burns_ in a vacuum so… ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-melt-wood/634411/26 "2012-09-12T15:52:36Z")
So how much wood could a woodchuck melt if a woodchuck could melt wood? ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-melt-wood/634411/27 "2012-09-12T16:11:29Z")
Perhaps it would be possible to play with pressure along with or instead of with heat to try to liquify it. also it does nto follow that melting is a reversible process for a composite material, just you could get some solid back. ---
**Author:** ![dstarfire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dstarfire/32/5762_2.png) [@dstarfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dstarfire)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-melt-wood/634411/28 "2012-09-12T20:29:11Z")
To dumb it all the way down: If you melt an object you retain it’s composition, but not it’s structure. In other words, if you were to melt down a light bulb, and refreeze it, you’d expect to get a mass with of metal, glass ,and other stuff, not another light bulb. This same principle applies even to very small structures, like cells, and even proteins and sugars. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-melt-wood/634411/29 "2012-09-12T21:51:49Z")
if something becomes liquid through pyrolysis it undergoes a chemical change. you wouldn’t loose the elemental composition but you would loose the molecular composition. tar and charcoal don’t easily become a piece of wood again. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-melt-wood/634411.md?page=1)