Thread: help

i know that on a match, the tip of the match and the side of the box have chemicals and when they create friction, they make fire which in turn burns of the meager water in the wood

I am not sure if you are trying to ask a question here. If so what is it?

The chemicals that catch fire are all in the head of the match. The side of the match box is made rough simply to help generate the friction to raise the temperature of the chemicals sufficiently to make them react.

To add, the reaction occurs between potassium chlorate and atominy sulphide on the match head and red phosphorus on the stricking surface. When you strick the match AFAIK the friction causes the red Phosphorus to convert to white phosphorus which then ignites the mixture.

Whats the 'meager water' anyway.

Lucky are you sure about the red phosphorus. That sounds more akin to the older type of match used before the introduction of the present 'safety match'.

I could google it, but I'm feeling lazy and you appear to have some in depth knowledge of the subject.

I'm pretty sure they did yea. Since victorian times most matches have been based on the reaction between potassium chlorate and phosphorus/sulphur. However in victorian times, instead of red phosphorus, white phosphorus was used. This caused alot of problems as the matches could spontaniously combust and could be used to kill people due to white P's toxicity. As a result safety matches were introduced which used basically the same reagents, except red P replaced the white P and was used on the strickig surface instead of the match head.

oh crap sorry i was trying to reply to poster woops i wasnt asking a question

Thanks for the input Lucky, and welcome to the forum.

[I see you are from Bath. I drove through there last Friday. Lovely city: dreadful traffic.]

yea its a nice place, but it gets pretty boring after living there for 18 years though.