Is there a way to get a solid incendiary substance like Thermite (a mixture of powdered aluminum and perchlorate oxidizer IIRC) to burn more slowly? What I’m getting at is something you could use as a self-contained heatsource, only one that would glow cherry red for an hour instead of incandescent for a minute.
THey have handwarmers that use either charcoal type fuel sticks or some type of lighter fluid. Check hunting stores.
Thermite is a metal oxide and a metal, not a metal and an oxidiser. Powdered aluminum and perchlorate would get you flash powder, which would go boom. Thermite is usually aluminum and iron oxide.
Iron or steel can be added to thermite to make it ‘burn’ at a lower temperature, and is usually done when casting with thermite. The iron or steel’s heat of fusion is taken from the reaction between the iron oxide and aluminum, which cools the reaction a bit. It’s still molten iron, though.
So, in conclusion, thermite probably isn’t the chemical reaction you’re looking for.
In another of my hobbies, we very efficiently turn a fuel into heated air and cherry red steel, but if you wanted to go with a combustor you’d probably have said so.
I had a house with thermites and they were pretty slow as they did very little damage over the course of several months. The exterminator told me they are always pretty slow and I could wait a few months to do the treatment.
What?
Oh?
Never mind.
I’m not entirely sure what you mean by a combustor, so let me explain exactly what I’m looking for:
In a RPG, we have a setting in which my party regularly has to make “cold camps” (no camp fire) because of the danger of detection in enemy territory. The fictional world we’re in has a sort of alchemists guild, so we’re allowed nearly any real world chemistry provided we can cite the actual substances involved to the GM. What I’m looking for is a solid brick of some substance that once ignited will put out enough heat to cook with and keep warm, but will produce no flame or smoke. Charcoal of course will do this, but is hard to ignite and inconvenient to carry and use. We need something that will ignite in a howling blizzard in a mountain pass in the dead of winter. It can use ambient oxygen, just that the combustion products must be either solid ash or invisible gases.
You may have been on the right track in the first place Lumpy. Rather than thermite (Al + Fe2O3), you could have a reaction with iron and an oxidant. All that you need to do is control the rate of reaction so that the heat is evolved over a long period of time. A mild easily available oxidant is air.
So get a lot of finely divided iron, contain it in such a way that the oxygen in the air can get in at a controlled rate and you have slow iron combustion, or fast rust.
Well, your local REI or Eastern Mountain Sports sells several different types of alcohol and white gas stoves. None of them generates anything significant in terms of light or smoke, and the technology isn’t incredibly advanced. I don’t see why you have to invent any new substance.
There are stoves that run on alcohol, which burn for twenty to thirty minutes, with a blue flame entirely contained in a stove about the size of a large tuna can. They produce a very small amount of black smoke, but will burn even at altitude, and cook a modest meal, or heat enough water to act as a tent warmer for several hours. Replace the water with a block of iron, and it could keep you from freezing for the night. They do have to cool down before you refill, or relight them, though.
Very simple to make with some sheet steel, or aluminum, and lighter than a fancy butane stove, even with a bottle of alcohol.
Now if you could get a pellet of Californium, and encase it in iron, really securely, that would be your ticket. Hot as hell, although I don’t remember just how hot, but it won’t cool off for years. Of course, it would be a bit beyond alchemy. Expensive too.
Tris
“I saw guns that shot swords, in the hands of young children!” ~ Bob Dylan ~
The deals that you heat MREs with consist of salt and an iron-magnesium alloy that reacts pretty violently when water is added to the mix. Hot enough to boil water too. Although I’m not sure how you would get magnesium in a fantasy world…