As a young pup, my father instilled into me the practice of lighting a match in the bathroom to counteract any malodorous emissions. Recently, while whittling away my time in a hotel room, I lit up a match only to notice that the match seems to emit a puff of smoke when it is struck, hardly smokes at all while lit, and then smokes heavily again when blown out. Surely someone can educate me as to why a match does not emit smoke consistently. Please help me so that I can return to reading again during my, um, down time.
The more smoke released, the less efficient the burning. When you first light a match, the chemicals the match has been treated with, to get the match lit, burn quickly but inefficiently, so you get a puff of smoke. While the match stays lit, the match stick is burning with a relatively clean even flame (efficient burning). When you put it out, it is still hot enough for some oxidation (burning) to take place, but it is very inefficient (really just smoldering).
Naturally, if you want to keep it from smoking, you have to cool it rapidly, or deprive it of oxygen rapidly. You can accomplish both by putting it out with water.
From my thread awhile back… http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=229225. Una Persson responds with this:
It’s not directly related to your match question, but I think this reasoning may apply to your question. I want to say that the smoke is always there, but that it’s being used so quickly as a fuel to help with the burning of the match because it contains these volatile organic hydrocarbon compounds. And when it gets put out, there’s nothing to burn it up so it just dissipates in the air.
Someone please correct me on this if this isn’t the case.