Candle Burn Lab Results

Burn Baby Burn! Although there are many misconceptions about how a candle burns, my experiment has shown that a candle burns mainly because of the wax vapor produced by the heat of the flame. Before it is lit, the candle is presented as solid white wax in a silver container with a solid wax coated wick. At first, the wick has troubles lighting due to the solid wax coating the wick. As the wax melts off the wick the candle is able to light. This process takes approximately seven seconds. When the candle is first lit, the flame is very small, it then grows to be almost one centimeter, following this, the flame gets small again, and finally the flame gets to about one centimeter again and stays fairly constant. This is made possible by capillary action and combustion reaction. When the candle is first being lit, it can not burn due to the fact that it does not have any fuel yet. As the candle is being lit, the flame heats the wax coating causing the wax to go through the process of combustion reaction. This means elements in the wax, carbon and hydrogen, react with the oxygen in the air around the candle in order to produce carbon dioxide and the …show more content…
The smaller flame remains until the wax at the base of the wick melts to a liquid. When the puddle of wax is formed, the candle uses capillary action in order to form wax vapor and maintain the flame. This means that a chain of molecules attach to each other and pull each other up the wick. As a molecule reaches the top of the wick, it has enough heat to go through the combustion reaction and become wax vapor, CO2, in order burn and essentially “fuel the flame.” When this happens, the flame is able to grow again and sustain a consistent size until all of the wax in the candle is used and the flame runs out of wax vapor to