Q:
When burning a candle, do water and carbon dioxide form?
A:
Assuming the candle wick is made out of organic compounds (usually wicks are braided cotton, which is made up of organic compounds), the answer is yes.
The reason water and carbon dioxide form when burning a candle is because burning a candle wick is a form of combustion of organic molecules. Combustion, which we usually think of as "burning" or "fire", is really just a chemical reaction in which molecules react with oxygen from the air. We experience this as fire, but really, in the case of wood or a candle, it is hydrocarbons (organic molecules) combining with oxygen from the air to form chemical products. Combustion reactions involving organic molecules have the following form:
`X + O_2 + heat-> CO_2 + H_2 O + heat`
In the above, the left side are the reactants and the right side are the products (you can read the arrow as "yields" or "produces"). X in the above stands for the fuel. In combustion, the fuel is some organic molecule, that is, a particular type of molecule made up of some combination of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. In other words, in an organic combustion reaction, organic molecules--along with oxygen and heat--produce carbon dioxide, water, and more heat. This is the general form of a complete combustion reaction.
Candle wicks are made of organic molecules. When candle wicks are heated to a certain point in the presence of oxygen, they burn, forming carbon dioxide and water, as well as heat.
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