Flame: Encyclopedia II - Flame - Flame Colors

Flame - Flame Colors

Image:Flames.jpg

The image at right demonstrates the difference in flame colors depending on how complete the combustion is. Pictured is a bunsen burner burning mainly methane. When the gas is burnt it burns with yellow flame, also called a safety flame, at 1,000 C. When the flame is blue, using the heat color rule it is much hotter, around 1,600 C. Flame temperatures of common items include a blowlamp at 1,300 C, a candle at 1,400 C, or a much hotter oxy-acetylene combustion at 3,000 C.

Generally speaking, if the flame is red, that is the cooler part of the flame, then it goes to orange, yellow, white, violet and blue and bright blue, as the temperature increases. For a given flame's region, the closer to white, blue, or bright blue on this scale, the hotter that section of the flame is.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Flame Colors", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki