I would assume it is a liquid because if you were to have a constant stream blowing against glass for example, it would leave a slippery residue; like the inside of your vehicle’s windshield from smoking cigarettes, for example.
Also, what’s up with the fact that I can re-ignite a candle by lighting that thick stream of smoke when I blow it out?
Sorry if the question is lame, but I think of a lot of stupid things.
Thanks, and I’m outta here like saddams beard.
A ‘suspension’ of particles in air?
WAG
It’s a combination of an ordinary solution (gas dissolved in gas) and a colloidal solution (solid suspended in gas).
Smoke is a colloid, a mixture of substances that settles slowly or does not settle. It’s mostly a suspension of very small solid particles of carbon in a gas (mostly the products of combustion, carbon dioxide and water). The oily organic residue left on surfaces by cigarette smoke is a mixture of compounds that are probably mostly in the vapor phase in the smoke itself but can deposit on surfaces as liquids when the smoke cools.
About relighting a candle by lighting smoke: By definition, smoke is the product of incomplete combustion. Since the smoke is thick, it’s rich with carbon compounds that can still be oxidized further. Oxidation is combustion.
Air and water are both fluids. So is the plasma inside your flourescent lamp, and inside the sun. Therefore, they can both support particles that float through them but don’t join up with anything.
What substances? Say one was to burn a pile of magnesium; what IS the smoke? How would it differ from sulfur smoke?
It would differ in that it would be a different chemical. You’d need to run some simple chemistry models to see what would be produced in each case.
Excellent - I thank you guys for you super FAST replies.
Magnesium smoke is finely divided magnesium oxide particles, plus a little magnesium carbonate from atmospheric carbon dioxide. (Mg doesn’t give off CO2, it reacts with it). Magnesium burns hot enough for nitrogen oxides, etc. to be produced, too .
Burning sulfur gives off sulfur dioxide and often small amounts of sulfur trioxide (which can combine with water to make sulfuric acid) - both transparent gases. The smoke is sublimated solid sulfur, vaporized by the flame and condensed as microscopic particles in the cooler air.
Smoke is an aerosol, a suspension of particles in a gas (air). For a definitive discussion, see Aerosol Technology by W. C. Hinds, one of the nicest textbooks on ANY subject.
The particles are made up of a thick, sticky, brownish oil with solid black bits in them. Being more liquid than solid does not mean that they are not “particles”, in the context of aerosol science.
Smoke is a colloidal dispersion, specifically a solid aerosol, like dust.
The dispersed phase is solid, the dispersion medium is gas. Other examples of colloidal dispersions are opal (solid suspension-liquid/solid), mayonnaise (emulsion liquid/liquid) and fog (liquid aerosol - liquid/gas).