How to put out alcohol fire?

Alcohol is a common liquid in daily life. Alcohol has a strong odor and can cause fires. Alcohol is rich in demulsifiers. When alcohol catches fire, it will easily cause the fire to grow bigger. When alcohol catches fire, ordinary fire extinguishers cannot be used. Since ordinary fire extinguishers have foam, they will not be able to extinguish the fire. You can use soil or sand to put out the fire.

How to put out alcohol fire?

When alcohol catches fire, ordinary foam fire extinguishers cannot put out the fire. Because alcohol is a demulsifier, as long as the foam comes into contact with alcohol, the alcohol will destroy the foam. As a result, no foam layer that isolates oxygen can be formed on the surface of the alcohol, and the purpose of fire extinguishing cannot be achieved.

Therefore, alcohol fire can only be put out with anti-solvent foam or fine sand. In addition, it can also be put out with wet rags, wet sacks, wet quilts, etc.

To prevent alcohol fires, special care should be taken not to place alcohol close to fire, heat and power sources. If there is a large amount of alcohol in stock, it should be covered with non-combustible materials and kept at an appropriate distance. It should also be strictly supervised and fireworks are strictly prohibited. The wine cabinet at home should not be placed near the stove or heater. Strictly speaking, it is not appropriate to place a TV above the wine cabinet.

Physical and chemical properties of ethanol

The ethanol molecule is composed of two parts: a hydrocarbon group (—C2H5) and a functional group hydroxyl group (—0H). Its physical properties (melting point, boiling point, solubility) are related to this. Ethanol is a colorless, transparent, fragrant, volatile, flammable liquid with a melting point of -117.3°C, a boiling point of 78.5°C, a density of 0.7893 g/cm3, and is miscible with water and most organic solvents in any ratio. Ethanol can undergo esterification reaction with oxygen-containing acids, including organic acids (such as formic acid, acetic acid) and inorganic acids (sulfuric acid), to produce certain acids and certain esters.

How ordinary citizens deal with ethanol combustion accidents

If the ethanol has just caught fire, you can directly cover it with a damp rag. If ethanol burns for a certain period of time, citizens are advised to use CO2 fire extinguishers to put out the fire. It can form an isolation layer on the surface of ethanol, preventing it from contacting with oxygen, thus extinguishing the fire. We need to remind everyone that water cannot extinguish the flame of ethanol burning. Using water to extinguish the flame of ethanol will expand the disaster and may cause the flame to spread to the drain or sewer.

Precautions

It should be pointed out here that in order to extinguish ethanol flames, a corrosion-resistant foam made of polymer must be used, because the principle of ordinary foam fire extinguishers is to form an isolation layer to extinguish the flame, but since distilled ethanol is corrosive, it can corrode the foam and continue to burn.

The scientific name of what we usually call alcohol is ethanol. Ethanol is produced through fermentation of various grains. It is a flammable and volatile liquid.

Ethanol gasoline is a fuel that is blended from ordinary gasoline and ethanol in a certain proportion through a specific process.

Ethanol gasoline is a new type of environmentally friendly fuel that can effectively reduce and lower the air pollution caused by automobile exhaust emissions. And it will save oil resources.