Lighting a charcoal grill with liquid oxygen

This is the way geeks light their cookout fires.

A bit of history about this video:
This video was featured in a Dave Barry article in the mid '90s, and was arguably one of the first wide-spread URLs. Due to this sudden influx of interest, Purdue's networks experienced one of the first "Slashdot Effects" ever, driving it's only T1 line at max capacity for AN ENTIRE WEEK!

Dave Barry Article:
http://baetzler.de/humor/litegrill.html

IgNobel prize:
http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/1996/10.10/IgNobelPrizesar.html
http://improbable.com/ig/ig-pastwinners.html#ig1996

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• oxygen
• grill
• charcoal
• fire
• diy
• gadget
• mechanics

[snerl69]

how cold does the oxygen needs to be to get it liquid

[filmorependrgn]

@snerl69 at atmospheric pressure, about -362F, -219C, or 54K depending on which way you like temperature measured. In other words... very very cold.

[electronixtar]

液氧？？？？

[filmorependrgn]

是

[hogmaster13]

Oxygen is not fuel at all. Oxygen reacts with the fuel as part of the combustion process. Combustion is a redox reaction which means that there is a change in oxidation state of the reactants. The fuel is often some carbohydrate like gasoline or in the case of some rockets (and hopefully someday cars), Hydrogen. In a combustion reaction such as this one, the carbon gets oxidized while the oxygen molecules are reduced. The end products include Carbon dioxide and water.

[rbmaserang]

Hog master is talking out of his ass. gasoline is a hydrocarbon, not a carbohydrate. and his choice of words indicate a minimal understanding of exothermic reactions. sounds like an idiot to me.

[amazing763]

@lljkSadi No, no, it's not dangerous or dumb. It's chemical engineering. Dangerous would be if there weren't any fire extinguishers handy. Hmmm. I didn't see any. And dumb would be if he didn't use a ten-foot pole and was thus contending for a Darwin instead of an IgNobel.

This is the kind of thing I used to do. Fortunately for the world, I thought I was really, really good at chemistry, and didn't bother studying it very hard. Wound up majoring in other stuff instead.

[ratbertovich]

@hogmaster13 I guess with this setup you could actually burn anything as fuel. I wonder what the fire department had to say about all this.

[hogmaster13]

@rbmaserang I did make a mistake in saying carbohydrate instead of hydrocarbon, but I'm curious about where else you find such error that warrants the title "idiot". I'm no psychologist, but I suspect you are woefully insecure and you're using youtube comments as an outlet for your otherwise impotent rage stemming from an utter lack of control over certain aspects of your own life. Or, you just like over reacting.

[hogmaster13]

@DjPyro2010 Be careful how things are stated. Oxygen is not the fuel in this case specifically. It could, under different conditions, be a fuel. Also, if we want to know if things are flammable we should first define what flame is. Flame is usually considered the hot glowing region at or nearby a combustion reaction. The light comes from 2 primary sources, black body radiation from soot, and ionized particles (plasma). Under the right conditions, just about anything can be flammable.

[snerl69]

@filmorependrgn thanks :)

[TheScientist0000000]

So is the charcoal ready or not...

[gunnz021]

awesome

[MrCcbcc]

Hamburgers any one?