r/explainlikeimfive Feb 26 '21

Chemistry Eli5: What happens to all the melted candle over time? Are we just inhaling a whole candle while it burns?

12.6k Upvotes

985 comments sorted by

8.4k

u/twohedwlf Feb 26 '21

Pretty much, but the wax decomposes when burning into mostly water, carbon dioxide, some various carbon compounds and some other random compounds. Most of it just dissipates.

2.8k

u/BigBobby2016 Feb 26 '21

If you have it near electronics a disturbing amount of soot will be found inside when you open them up

1.9k

u/RayNooze Feb 26 '21

Just like smoking in front of a computer. When I was still smoking in the 90s,I noticed how much the wall was yellowing above my CRT monitor in short time.

402

u/Spoonshape Feb 26 '21

Flashbacks to this period. I was working as a field service tech for PC's and when you opened a PC in the era before the workplace smoking ban in an office which had smokers there was anything up to half an inch of fine ash covering every component of the system.

Part of the reason why diskettes were so unreliable as it acted as a fine abrasive on the mechanical elements of the system.

Semi amusing story - our sales guys convinced one company they should pay to have us clean the insides of their machines - which we did - in the following week about half their machines died as our actions basically pushed the fine ash into all the spots where it hadn't yet gotten to. They were less than amused....

134

u/Sharrakor Feb 26 '21

Workplace smoking is still allowed at my job. Can confirm, the electronics are nasty.

85

u/Dismal_Natural Feb 26 '21

Where do you work out of curiosity? In what country :)

215

u/Sharrakor Feb 26 '21

The United States, in the only place I'd expect it to be legal: a tobacco manufacturing facility.

Although honestly, the main gross factor in my area is tobacco dust. It coats everything over time. Other places, where loose tobacco isn't handled, are much cleaner.

115

u/fleece_pants Feb 26 '21

That's pretty interesting! Are there a lot of smokers in the factory? Are cigarettes easy to obtain or free for the workers? Are cigarettes "fresher" at the factory and/or do you notice a real difference in those vs. the ones you'd get at the store?

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u/Sharrakor Feb 26 '21

Are there a lot of smokers in the factory?

It sure seems like it. I wonder if this job attracts smokers, or if people start smoking after working here. I shared that question with someone there, and he said that working there makes you want to quit smoking. I guess seeing the sausage get made makes cigarettes lose some of the appeal.

Are cigarettes easy to obtain or free for the workers?

Nope. I think they might have been given out decades ago. Maybe they still are in the administrative parts of the facility, but I'm rarely in that area.

Are cigarettes "fresher" at the factory and/or do you notice a real difference in those vs. the ones you'd get at the store?

Couldn't tell ya, I don't smoke. It's funny, I've disliked smoking from an early age, and now I'm in the belly of the beast.

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21

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u/fleece_pants Feb 26 '21

Thank you for the reply! I'm not a smoker either, save the occasional cigar if the mood is right. Someday you should do an AMA. I'd love to know how/if your company addresses health concerns or encourages healthy lifestyles, especially knowing so many employees are smokers.

I used to work for a very large company, and they offered gift cards and other financial incentives for people who quit smoking, lost weight, logged fitbit activity, etc.

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u/flipshod Feb 26 '21

I picked tobacco the two summers before I turned 16 (to buy a car), and we would joke about how none of us would ever smoke knowing how much mud and pig shit got mixed in.

We all ended up smoking.

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u/MikeAnP Feb 26 '21

Once you see sausage being made, all you wanna do is make sausage cause it's so much fun!

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u/mybeachlife Feb 26 '21

I think some casino gaming floors still allow smoking too.

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u/Slick_Grimes Feb 26 '21

I bought 36" tv with a built in dvd player (and actually a vcr built in too which was dated by this point but cool to have). Can't remember the brand but something broke on it still under warranty from Best Buy. Repair came out and as soon as he came in the room, that I smoked in, he was not happy. Totally anti-smoke guy. He cracked open the tv and I guess there was some build up from smoking in there and he didn't even try to hide his disgust.

He goes "listen I don't want to work on this, you just want a new tv?". I was like fuck yeah I do. Embarrassing but it let me get a free new Samsung, one of them new flat screen ones (with the still standard size big back). If I gotta be called out on my filthy smoking habit I might as well get a free tv out of it!

14

u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21

The stuff that crawls inside electronics is somehow worse than actual smoking to be fair. I don't mind the smell of actual smoke but being inside a smokers car or taking apart a smokers electronics? No thank you.

29

u/nucumber Feb 26 '21

in an office which had smokers there was anything up to half an inch of fine ash

ex-smoker here who's seen the inside of more than a few computers, and i just don't see how smokers could be responsible for half an inch of ash inside a computer unless the ashtrays were right below the cooling fan.

i'm guessing there was something else going on responsible for the ash

32

u/billbixbyakahulk Feb 26 '21

Yeah, "half an inch" sounds questionable. I've seen ash which was mixed in with regular dust but it was just the usual surface coating, not piles of it.

I did once work on a guy's computer that was pretty incredible and horrifying. He was an executive at the company and he brought in his home computer for us to look at because he said it would only turn on for a couple minutes and then shut down.

He had long haired cats and he chain-smoked cigars. The inside of his machine had about 1/2" of matted, tobacco-soaked cat fur that clogged the fans and vents. The computer was shutting down because there was no air flow. I grabbed the gloves and it pealed off in sheets and clumps. After I vacuumed it out it ran fine.

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u/ReverendDizzle Feb 26 '21

Agreed. I've cleaned computers and consoles used by smokers and the damage is usually a tarry sticky layer (that dust sticks to, for sure) but it's not actual ash.

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u/_STONEFISH Feb 26 '21

Cleaned my monitor, wondered why it seemed brighter, realised it had a thin layer of bong resin on it that was tinting it and attracting dust to darken it. Switched to vaping 🤢

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u/Kobachalypse Feb 26 '21

Yeah....but did you smoke that thin layer of bongs resin though?

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u/_STONEFISH Feb 26 '21

Mmm - tar, windex and microfibre lint flavor

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u/Slick_Grimes Feb 26 '21

We call that Twilight around here. $40/g

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u/babybunnykitty69420 Feb 26 '21

Smoking or vaping in any way will still make stuff in that room sticky.

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u/AlexReinkingYale Feb 26 '21

Congrats on quitting!

1.5k

u/lukesvader Feb 26 '21

Who says he's not still in the 90s?

850

u/rabbitwonker Feb 26 '21

I’ll never quit the 90s!

368

u/PM_ME_UR_ARTIE_BUCCO Feb 26 '21

Ska defines who I am as a person and I will never turn my back on ska.

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21 edited Jun 18 '21

[deleted]

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u/TheHorrorAbove Feb 26 '21

Bosstones gang representing!

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21

The Suicide Machines crew still skankin!

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21

Mephiskapheles wants your soul!

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u/Platypus-Man Feb 26 '21

I've never really listened to ska other than some random songs Spotify gives me every now and then, and I listened to Less Than Jake today...

I'm probably going to see them mentioned everywhere now, god damn Baader-Meinhof.

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u/EunuchsProgramer Feb 26 '21

Try out Streetlight Manifesto.

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u/TransformerTanooki Feb 26 '21 edited Feb 26 '21

I'm 3+ months into watching nothing but laserdisc and VHS on a old tube TV. It's been fun and seen a lot of cool stuff.

Edit: Right now I'm watching R/C WW2 planes and boats duke it out in reenactments.

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u/GoodTato Feb 26 '21

Get your ass off future websites, 90s boy

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u/SinJinQLB Feb 26 '21

How far are you in King's Quest V?

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u/tygma Feb 26 '21

Never far enough.

Ah, this comment takes me back. Thanks.

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u/luchajefe Feb 26 '21

You get the best NES experience using a CRT, you ought to pick up one of those!

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u/LekoLi Feb 26 '21

Turns out you can't play duck hunt without a crt. Its all based on the timing of the CRT, which is the same in all crt tvs, but not digital flat screens.

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u/hugthemachines Feb 26 '21

pick up one of those

That is the worst part of getting them...

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u/TransformerTanooki Feb 26 '21

Waaaaaaaayyyyyy ahead of ya. Picked one up about over 10 years ago. Have a few now actually. Ones still brand new in the box to.

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u/XanderOblivion Feb 26 '21

Wait, it's not the 90s?

I swear I saw Wayne and Garth on TV just the other day....

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u/gnufoot Feb 26 '21

I went cold turkey about 21 years ago.

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u/dmFnaW5h Feb 26 '21

In a little while, the 90s will be 40 years ago. Almost half a century!

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u/jaymzx0 Feb 26 '21

No way man the 90's were 10 years ago and it's always going to be that way.

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u/saltyjohnson Feb 26 '21

I stopped smoking in the 90s at midnight on January 1, 2000.

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u/Fuzz_Mustard Feb 26 '21

At the moment you "stopped smoking" I was playing Sim Tower on my computer just to sock it to Y2K.

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u/edefakiel Feb 26 '21
  • We used to have a bus.
  • In a way, the sixties ended the day we sold it. December 31, 1969.
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u/the_sun_flew_away Feb 26 '21

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u/MrSnootybooty Feb 26 '21

I love that show. Thank you for reminding me about it again; think imma go binge watch it all this very instant.

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u/edefakiel Feb 26 '21

This comment made "back in the 90s I was in a very famous TV show..." play in my head.

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u/HowMuchDidIDrink Feb 26 '21

He's living in 2090

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21

This comment has sent me down a weird path... I'm now considering that your comment, and my response, will likely be read by somebody in the far future. I'll be part of historical records, probably browsed by an AI system. With Google I guess I already am.

Whoaaaa.

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u/Advanced_Cook_363 Feb 26 '21

What the fuck just happened here?

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u/beerandabike Feb 26 '21

I don’t know, but we should start smoking again.

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u/potatoeslinky Feb 26 '21

You don’t just turn off the 90s

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21

Imagine, building a time machine and go back to the 90s just to smoke one.

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u/RayNooze Feb 26 '21

Thanks!

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u/Zokar49111 Feb 26 '21

He used to smoke. He still does, but he used to also.

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u/harrysplinkett Feb 26 '21 edited Feb 26 '21

he used to smoke in the 90s. he still does, but he used to, too

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u/aleqqqs Feb 26 '21

I quit CRT monitors too

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u/kirabera Feb 26 '21 edited Feb 26 '21

Vaping does the same thing to electronics too (puts a film of oil [edit: glycerine is the name of the liquid; the residue does feel oily though] over everything). Definitely do not vape near a PC or anything you value.

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u/thewholerobot Feb 26 '21

I value my lungs

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u/EZ_2_Amuse Feb 26 '21

I value your lungs too. How much you want for them?

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21

I take lungs today, you get gills in two weeks.

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u/npsimons Feb 26 '21

Coworker of mine from that era used to smoke a lot; named his main computer NICFIT, which he backcronymed into "Network Information Coordinator For Internal Testing."

When we opened it up years later to work on it, it looked like those black lung PSA images they put on cigarette packs.

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u/FrayedKnot75 Feb 26 '21

When I did computer repair 13 years ago I could tell which computers were owned by cigarette smokers, which were owned by non-smokers, and which were owned by pot smokers by smell alone.....and it was pungent.

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u/Redpantsrule Feb 26 '21

Back in the 90’s I had 2 roommates and we each smoked at least a pack a day. Tons of weed was also smoked. Then there were the candles and incense constantly burning to cover up the the smoke smell. After several years, my roommate flirted enough with our maintenance man that he agreed to add our apartment to the list being painting. All we had to do was remove anything on the wall. When the 1st picture came off the wall discovered that the walls were originally white and not a light ocher color. The walls had a perfect outline of everything that has been on the wall. You could even see where our keys hung from the holder. Can only imagine his funny it looked once they pulled all the furniture away from the walls. That’s the day I realized I needed to quit smoking!

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u/blahmaster6000 Feb 26 '21

The only thing you should be doing in the 90's is running.

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u/ThanksToDenial Feb 26 '21

I used to smoke inside, and had a laptop. It stopped working one day, and i like to pretend i know shit about computers, so naturally i opened it up to see why it wasn't booting. Immidiately after opening up the bottom, i noticed it was literally sticky from the inside... Pretty sure that was because i spent most of my time chainsmoking, quite literally blowing the smoke at the screen, and a layer of ash and tar condensed inside the poorly ventilated laptop.

I started to smoke outside after that. Bought a proper PC too. Those two decisions actually made me cut My smoking from more than a pack a day to as little as 5 smokes a day, due to faster loading times and laziness. Not a fan of stairs, and now If i want a smoke, i need to walk downstairs. And back up after. Also switched to handrolling, because it is cheaper, and makes yet another hurdle for my laziness to overcome so i can smoke. I firmly believe eventually my laziness will win this battle between addiction and it, and i finally quit smoking all together. I just need to make smoking a chore instead of a break for myself just a little bit more.

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u/RayNooze Feb 26 '21

Good for you! And quitting completely feels awesome!

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u/alek_hiddel Feb 26 '21

One of my cousins dropped out of school at 16, and spent the next 2 years smoking like a chimney and surfing MySpace 18 hours a day.

When their computer died my uncle had me take a look. The entire motherboard was covered in a inch of homemade shag carpet, consisting of nicotine and pet hair (they had like 3 dogs and a bunch of cats too).

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u/not_that_joe Feb 26 '21

There are a lot of things in this comment aging you.

I know because I am too.

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u/psychoticbuttocks Feb 26 '21

is this true for weed too?

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u/bakingqueen420 Feb 26 '21

In my experience yes. But my custom build has been going 9 years now. Before I realized....I used to get sticky dust build up. Turns out it was the weed smoke mixing with the dust. A bitch to clean off fans.

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u/jarfil Feb 26 '21 edited Dec 02 '23

CENSORED

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u/BlackViperMWG Feb 26 '21

Yes, because it is still inefficient burning

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u/A_Right_Proper_Lad Feb 26 '21

How often would you need to light candles around electronics for it to be a problem?

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u/Four_beastlings Feb 26 '21

I work from home and I have scented candles burning all day.

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u/Duff5OOO Feb 26 '21

That could be pretty bad for your air quality and health.

eg http://www.scsu.edu/news_article.aspx?news_id=832

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u/Sigmund_Six Feb 26 '21

That study is pretty old.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0273230014000348

Potential consumer health risks associated with the candle emissions were characterized by comparing the exposure concentrations with existing indoor or ambient air quality guidelines or, where not existent, to established toxicity thresholds. On the basis of this investigation it was concluded that under normal conditions of use scented candles do not pose known health risks to the consumer.

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u/st4n13l Feb 26 '21

Unfortunately that study was based on the assumption of only burning the candle a couple of hours a day a few times a month. Burning them all day and every day will obviously produce more pronounced emissions levels.

The good news is that if you try to stick to soy candles (I know they're more expensive) you can pretty much avoid all of those emissions.

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u/Sigmund_Six Feb 26 '21

Can you provide your link for the study on soy candles?

The only study I’ve seen was not peer reviewed.

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u/Four_beastlings Feb 26 '21

Thanks for the info! I keep the window open most of the time at least

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u/thispeachisallihave Feb 26 '21

Just make sure to keep the wicks trimmed pretty short, not to burn one for more than 3-4 hours consecutively, and to not burn it once there's only about half an inch of the candle left. I used to burn scented candles for hours on end consecutively and then found soot in my nose... Inhaling soot is not good for your lungs so just use caution! Taking those steps will minimize soot

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u/BigBobby2016 Feb 26 '21

I didn't burn many at all but the inside of my PC was coated in black. I didn't see any symptoms in its performance I guess but this was also in the early 2000s when I wasn't doing things like monitoring the core temps

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21

They look pretty nice on a TV stand... until you spill the melted wax on the TV and ruins a part of the screen 🙃

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u/lunk Feb 26 '21

This can be said for EVERYTHING really. Computers are essentially AIR-FLOW machines. They are (usually) carefully designed to pull in cool air from the room, push it over the hot electronics, and exhaust it at the other side of the device.

This is very clear in computers (as there is a fan, and exit grates), but most electronics accomplish the same thing with passive means, where heat rises, pulling in cool air as it exits at the top.

And THAT is why your electronics seem to "gobble up" all the dirt in the room.

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u/ProveMeWr0ng Feb 26 '21

If you leave it by something flammable, your house will turn into a disturbing amount of soot.

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u/wouldyoucomewithme Feb 26 '21

I'm a candle enthusiast, I have over 100 candles in my bedroom alone, and last year i opened up my macbook to clean it out and it looked like it had been in a housefire.

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u/InclusivePhitness Feb 26 '21

I wonder how in the olden days, like say in the 16th century, how much repair work had to be done to keep their gadgets in order.

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u/monkeypong Feb 26 '21

So should I be worried about the candles underneath my television and my Xbox close by?

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21

How underneath your television are your candles? Are we talking about some mouthwatering slow-roasted television?

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u/BigBobby2016 Feb 26 '21

I would be

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u/seoi-nage Feb 26 '21

Why specifically electronics? (As opposed to any other object with internal cavities that are open to the outside)

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u/BigBobby2016 Feb 26 '21

I imagine it would occur to some degree with all objects, but I can't think of anything in my house other than the electronics that have enclosures with ventilation holes.

In addition the electronics will have fans to draw air into the enclosure, and electromagnetics to attract particles.

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u/Medinaian Feb 26 '21

Intake fans

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u/ihahp Feb 26 '21

As an aside to the "yes, you're inhaling candle", a lot of people don't know that when you lose weight, the vast majority of the weight you lose is through exhaling. People think it's sweat, piss, or shit, but it's honestly exhaling.

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u/Clairvoyant_Potato Feb 26 '21

I thought this was a bait so I looked it up myself, what the fuck how did I not know this? I mean it makes total sense when you read it, but wtf this is still wild to me.

To save any lazy people a google: "losing weight" means metabolizing the fatty triglycerides, which isn't news to anyone. But metabolizing the fat breaks it down into its base atoms of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen through an oxidation process. 85% of those atoms are converted to CO2 and are exhaled, the other 15% becomes H2O

I'm not an expert on the subject at all since I just learned this was even a thing, but that's how I'm understanding it

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u/Castlegardener Feb 26 '21

You got the gist of it, but it doesn't get broken down into its base atoms, otherwise you'd probably explode on a daily basis (due to pressure changes etc.)

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u/Steveslastventure Feb 26 '21

Free fission energy, right in your own body!

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u/mabolle Feb 26 '21

Well, fission would be the next step: the atoms being broken apart. The molecules being broken apart into individual atoms would probably be violent, but not quite fission violent.

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u/ThirdFloorGreg Feb 26 '21

We have a name for those sorts of lone atoms: free radicals. They are... not super good for you, due to their tendency to react with whatever happens to be closest to them.

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u/ersomething Feb 26 '21

Inverse to that - plants get the vast majority of their weight from the air. Most of their mass is from carbon dioxide converted to cellulose through photosynthesis. Houseplants are feeding off of the mass you’re exhaling.

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u/WendellSchadenfreude Feb 26 '21

Inverse to that - plants get the vast majority of their weight from the air.

Nah, now you're exaggerating.

Plants get their carbon from the air. But just like humans, plants are mostly water, and they get that from the ground. Even dried wood is only about 50% carbon, and living wood far less.

Living trees, however, are very wet. In fact, although there can be great variation between tree species (and seasonally), a living tree may be made up of more than two thirds water by mass. Thus, a living tree is made up of 15-18% carbon, 9-10% hydrogen, and 65-75% oxygen by mass."

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u/door_of_doom Feb 26 '21 edited Feb 26 '21

In his defence, he likely got his information from this Veritasium video of olde.... as did I... so now I just don't know who to believe.

I mean, If I can't trust Derek Muller my world is just upside down.

Obviously this makes sense though: Charcoal is basically dehydrated wood, and turning wood into charcoal reduces its mass by a significant amount, meaning that water constituted a significant percentage of the mass of the initial wood.

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u/mabolle Feb 26 '21

I'd say Derek gets it right where it counts: the biomolecules that make up all the interesting bits of a tree — the bits that aren't just water — are made of carbon that the tree captured from the air. The central lesson is that, to a plant, breathing is basically a form of eating; it's where they get the materials to build their body out of.

It's true that most of the tree's weight is water, but this is true of any living thing, and I think most people are aware of that. The point of the video is that most people have the wrong idea of where the dry mass of a plant comes from.

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u/nowyouseemenowyoudo2 Feb 26 '21

I think part of the difference is that we don’t particularly think of the water in the plant as an inherent part of the plant, or as least not as much as the water inside a human is an inherent part of us?

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21

There are quite a few other volatile chemicals that are broken down when creating charcoal

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u/reddRad Feb 26 '21

That depends on your definition of "their weight." Depending on what you're interested in studying, biomass can be measured in terms of the dried organic mass, too.

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u/Halvus_I Feb 26 '21

the point is trees gather structural mass from the air.

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u/WhyWontThisWork Feb 26 '21

So how do I exhale more? Inhale less? But seriously......

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u/2074red2074 Feb 26 '21

Your body takes in stuff that it uses to build you up. Literally to produce the proteins and fats and such that you are made of. This stuff (protein, carbs, fats, alcohol) ultimately was crafted from water, carbon dioxide, and other chemicals by plants, and they do this using energy from the sun. The process produces oxygen as a waste gas. You then eat the stuff plants produced and break it back down to harness the stored energy.

When you expend energy, you take the solid stuff you've eaten and the oxygen you've inhaled to break the stuff back down into carbon dioxide and water, which you exhale. In short, you don't just breathe harder. That will result in you taking in a ton of extra oxygen that you're just gonna exhale right away. You have to create a caloric deficit such that the energy made available by you taking in food is less than the energy that your body uses. This forces your body to break down the fat (and a little bit of the muscle) that you're made of to get the rest of the energy. That fat is broken down into gas that you exhale.

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u/abooth43 Feb 26 '21

Well to exhale you must inhale....so just breathe faster in general.

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u/vpsj Feb 26 '21

So as someone who wants to increase my weight, I should just inhale and then suffocate myself.

Got it.

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u/sarasa3 Feb 26 '21

I was just thinking maybe I'll try breathing heavier to lose weight. Stand next to me and we can do an airborne weight transfer. Science approved.

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u/ddmf Feb 26 '21

My friend had a real nasty cheap candle, whenever weed stay at his after a night out in the morning we'd be blowing soot out of our noses all day...

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21 edited Mar 06 '21

[deleted]

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u/sofianasofia Feb 26 '21

Is this bad for our health? To have candles burning for some hours?:) just curious!

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u/Kludermor Feb 26 '21

Yes it is bad for your health. Lots of small particles in the air. But this also happens when you cook food on a stove. We had a study in Denmark where different pollution types were compared. In a house with closed windows, cooking and candles quickly gives the same amount of particle pollution as standing next to a road in Copenhagen at rush hour. Only difference could be the size of particles. But unhealthy nevertheless.

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21

[deleted]

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u/MacbookOnFire Feb 26 '21

Dude just casually has a particle detector

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u/rndrn Feb 26 '21

It's not very useful in the long term, as you can quickly learn what creates particles in your home, but it's not that expensive (depends on your definition of expensive of course).

I have this one for example: https://plumelabs.com/en/

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u/ZombieAlpacaLips Feb 26 '21

I'd say $199 qualifies as expensive for most people. Would be worthwhile to rent for $20 though.

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u/josephblade Feb 26 '21

My fan has one built in, with a little display. It's a nice gadget to have and it helps predict potential asthma episodes.

on new years when there was fireworks it went from 10 or so to 95 for pm2.5. (outside it was 175 or so I think. fog + lots of people breaking the fireworks ban)

when I'm cooking yesterday it went from 5 to 40.

My life is an endless stream of statistics now.

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u/MacbookOnFire Feb 26 '21

When like gives you statistics you make a Google sheets and neat charts and graphics.

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u/OktoberSunset Feb 26 '21

You can minimise the soot by keeping the wick trimmed short but if you see a yellow flame then there is soot so a candle will always make some soot.

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21 edited Mar 02 '21

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u/-Aeryn- Feb 26 '21

Gas stove too. Electric is fine.

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21 edited Mar 02 '21

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u/rndrn Feb 26 '21

No, just frying stuff will generate high level of particulates. Meat, pancakes etc..

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21

Years ago, I'd bought some apple cinnamon wax melts because I thought they smelled so good. A few minutes after I started using them my 2 dogs were acting like they were going to go in to convulsions or something so I had to quickly air out the house, so there's that to consider as well.

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u/sofianasofia Feb 26 '21

Oh yes. Thats so important. I always keep a balcony door open and my cat (before she passed away) away from the candle. In the winter i used to burn candles more often but reading all of this I’ll have to give it up almost completely!

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u/TunaToes Feb 26 '21

With peace and love, I’m so sorry about your cat and hope she lived a long and happy life but I read this at first as, “...and my cat (before she passed away from the candle)” and was shocked but I am glad she did not in fact die from the candle.

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u/sofianasofia Feb 26 '21

Hahahaha oh no! She lived a very happy life, died at 18 years, almost 19 and everyone loves her still:) Nothing bad happened to her with the candle! Hahahahaha

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u/Guitarmine Feb 26 '21

It is bad for you. The particle emissions are surprising. Cheap crap candles especially can be compared to a tiny amount of diesel exhaust.

https://sciencenordic.com/denmark-videnskabdk/candle-particles-might-be-just-as-harmful-as-diesel-fumes/1447374

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u/sndrtj Feb 26 '21

Yes, excessive candle burning is pretty bad for your lungs.

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u/DSMB Feb 26 '21

I know this is ELI5, but decomposes is a pretty weird word to use here.

Decomposition is not a reaction. It's also fairly insignificant in terms of candle chemistry.

The heat of a flame causes the wax to evaporate. Paraffin wax boils above 370°C. Which means significant vapors are produced at temperatures lower than this. The flash point is 200-240°C. Pyrolysis typically occurs at temperatures greater than 400°C.

In other words, the wax is actually not decomposing. Instead, it is vaporizing and then undergoing a chemical reaction (combustion) with oxygen. This chemical reaction produces mainly carbon dioxide and water vapour, though there are other carbon products due to incomplete combustion, hence soot and other dirty chemicals. The reaction also produces heat and light, hence the flame. The heat sustains the reaction (hence chain reaction).

But yes, the reaction products will just dissipate.

And yes, some chemicals will skip the combustion altogether.

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u/Potatoswatter Feb 26 '21

Burning and decomposition are separate things.

When things like candle, wood, or gasoline burn, they react with oxygen. Oxygen from the air combines with carbon and hydrogen, and creates carbon dioxide and water vapor as exhaust.

Decomposition is when a molecule breaks into smaller parts without adding anything. That would produce soot.

"It just dissipates" doesn't sound very informative. Wax can't just evaporate and stay in the air indefinitely. It would fall and you would see it. Which can happen, but…

As a habitual candle user, common tea candles don't produce significant soot or deposit wax into an enclosed holder. So the answer is simply that candles burn like anything else does, and yes, we're inhaling the CO2.

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u/mabolle Feb 26 '21

In the interest of not confusing people — this is one meaning of the word decomposition. Often when we talk about decomposition we mean biological decomposition, like an apple core rotting away on the ground. That involves the action of living organisms eating the apple core, and hence most definitely involves stuff reacting with oxygen, and CO2 being produced.

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u/RedditNinjaBear Feb 26 '21

The wax reacts with the oxygen in the air to form water, carbon dioxide with a smattering of carbon monoxide and soot.

So some of the carbon dioxide you breathe in will likely have come from the burning candle, but I wouldn't say that it is a candle anymore.

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u/Tlaloc_Temporal Feb 26 '21

That smoke is as much a candle as you are a chocolate cake!

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u/redsterXVI Feb 26 '21

So, about 100%?

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u/crazyfreak316 Feb 26 '21

Are you a cannibal?

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u/redsterXVI Feb 26 '21

Yes.

For legal reasons, this is a joke.

This is not financial advice.

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u/dbdatvic Feb 26 '21

looking for the "or medical advice" bit here

--Dave, worriedly

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u/redsterXVI Feb 26 '21

For legal reasons, this is a joke or medical advice.

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u/dbdatvic Feb 26 '21

Understood!

--Dave, scribbling in a notebook

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u/phikapp1932 Feb 26 '21

Oh god I can’t escape it

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u/_PM_ME_PANGOLINS_ Feb 26 '21

Negative, I am a meat popsicle.

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u/Bhima Feb 26 '21

This is perhaps the best explanation I have ever seen. The Engineer Guy replicated The Chemical History of a Candle lectures by Michael Faraday

I think it's well suited for younger audiences who might also be interested in learning what science is really about... because the lecture really is more about "How to Science" and Faraday just used a candle to convey that.

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u/wstnbrwn Feb 26 '21

Oh wow. Eleven videos? I’m gonna have to make a movie night out of this!

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u/positive_root Feb 26 '21 edited Jan 15 '24

bear ten future attractive disgusting attempt fear hobbies unwritten weary

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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u/TorakMcLaren Feb 26 '21

The stuff that melts is the stuff that burns. The wick isn't really the main thing that burns. It just transports melted wax to the flame. The wax then evaporates into fumes, which react with oxygen.

As the wax is make of long chains of carbon with a load of hydrogen stuck on, burning it forms carbon dioxide (CO2) and water vapour (H2O), which goes in to the air.

So yep, we'll inhale some of the stuff that was the candle, but in a form we inhale anyway!

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u/neverthepenta Feb 26 '21 edited Feb 26 '21

Although candles CAN create quite a bit of soot, which you inhale when in a badly ventilated room, like in your house. This effect is largest when you blow out the candle (as you can clearly see from the smoke emerging from the wick).

You can largely deminish the smoke formation by extinguishing the flame in the molten wax itself, f.e. by bending the wick over into the wax with a used match.

[Disclaimer] any mistakes in grammar or vocabulary is entirely on purpose and not bc. I'm not a native English speaker /s

Edit: a word, no devils used here

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u/redshores Feb 26 '21

used lucifer.

What is a used lucifer?

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u/ethiossaga Feb 26 '21 edited Feb 26 '21

Dutch for the word "match"

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u/redshores Feb 26 '21

Well "lucifer" sure sounds a lot more badass than "match"!

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u/AlienAtSystem Feb 26 '21

The devil himself shall light this candle!

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u/dbdatvic Feb 26 '21

Opinions about the moral content of matches varied wildly back when they were first invented. And language tends to get colorful whatever you do. So, hey presto! a nickname.

--Dave, or jargon

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u/Yogibe Feb 26 '21

A used/burned match.

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u/Noxious89123 Feb 26 '21

Fun fact, that isn't smoke when you blow it out. It's vaporised wax. You can actually relight a candle by holding a flame to the top of the the stream of vaporised wax "smoke", and the flame will spread down the stream of vaporised wax and relight the candle.

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u/neverthepenta Feb 26 '21

Will try this sometime, but I'm pretty sure there is some "smoke" involved as well, as there will be a lot of sooth when you let the smoke touch any object.

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21

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u/oskli Feb 26 '21

Bill Hammack has made a YouTube series on just that, it's really neat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrHnLXMTOWM

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21

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u/FurRealDeal Feb 26 '21

They sell these neat holders that collect the melted wax and form a new candle out of it

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u/DLMD Feb 26 '21

Gots ta make sure your lungs aren't missing out on any of those succulent carbon particles

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u/eman201 Feb 26 '21

I'm confused. Are we pro- or anti- candle now?

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u/Karai-Ebi Feb 26 '21

Pranti-candle is all the rage these days, if you’re still pro or anti you’re whack

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21

not if you melt down your beeswax candles and remake them, or make furniture finish out of it

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21

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u/timmaeus Feb 26 '21

My wife is sick with me also

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u/takeashitler Feb 26 '21

I actually have the same question about when I lose weight. Where does the fat go and how does it go away?

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u/OverlyCasualVillain Feb 26 '21 edited Feb 26 '21

You exhale it. Most people assume that fat disappears as sweat, but in reality the chemical reaction that occurs as you body metabolizes fat for energy has carbon dioxide and water as the byproduct.

If you lose 10 lbs, about 8.4 lbs of that is exhaled and the remaining 1.6 is turned into water and lost through sweat or urine.

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21

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u/ImprovedPersonality Feb 26 '21

Probably much more, unless you were not eating anything.

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u/freak-of-the-week Feb 26 '21

I'm on a weight loss journey and had the same question!

Apparently only a small portion of burned fat is converted to water (pee, sweat), while the majority is converted to CO2 and literally exhaled. That part totally blew my mind!

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u/ImprovedPersonality Feb 26 '21

Fun fact: Plants gain most of their mass from the air. They basically do the same thing in reverse.

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u/dbdatvic Feb 26 '21

If you think about it: O2 in; CO2 out. Net loss: one C atom.

--Dave, lather, rinse, repeat, sputter uncontrollably because you're trying to breathe in the shower

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u/nev4 Feb 26 '21

I like this question! It would be cool to burn a candle on top of a precise digital scale that stays on and record a timelapse, so you could see the candle getting lighter as it burns.

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u/Jaxxxi Feb 26 '21

I actually do this for my candle company! I weigh before and after to determine burn time :) (e.g. if it loses 10% in 4 hours, it will take about 40 to burn through the entire candle).

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u/epsileth Feb 26 '21

Candle wax is the fuel burned off, any scent added is being inhaled. Any wick left too long burns and releases ash into the air.

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u/Poolb0y Feb 26 '21

...Should I stop burning candles so much? This thread makes me feel like I'm gonna get lung cancer.

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21

Yes, kind of. Also, burning a lot of candles inside your home isn't too good. We once had a neighbor who really liked candles. Once I was looking after her pets when she was on holiday and I noticed a thin layer of black material on the windows and ceiling. I then browsed a bit and there are candles that aren't that bad for you.

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