New Type Of Fire

Scientists Discovered a New Type of Fire (+Video)

Andrew Liszewski | August 8, 2016

When they appear in the wild they can be devastating, but in a controlled environment fire tornadoes are not only mesmerizing to watch, it turns out a new iteration might also provide a more eco-friendly way to deal with man-made disasters like oil spills.
Researchers at the University of Maryland’s A. James Clark School of Engineering discovered a new type of fire tornado they’ve dubbed the blue whirl since it lacks the distinctive yellow color of traditional flames—and that’s what makes them useful.

"Researchers have discovered a new type of fire tornado they call a "blue whirl", which burns cleaner and more efficiently than its yellow counterparts." Source: http://newatlas.com/blue-whirl-fire-tornado/44779/

"Blue whirls could find applications in cleaning up oil spills by burning the fuel away more completely, with less pollutants released into the water and air." Source: http://newatlas.com/blue-whirl-fire-tornado/44779/pictures

<more at http://gizmodo.com/scientists-discovered-a-new-type-of-fire-1784967070; related articles and links: http://newatlas.com/blue-whirl-fire-tornado/44779/ (New "blue whirl" fire tornados spin up a cleaner burn. August 7, 2016) and http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/08/03/1605860113 (From fire whirls to blue whirls and combustion with reduced pollution. Huahua Xiaoa, Michael J. Gollnerb, and Elaine S. Orana. PNAS: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1605860113. PNAS August 4, 2016. [Abstract: Fire whirls are powerful, spinning disasters for people and surroundings when they occur in large urban and wildland fires. Whereas fire whirls have been studied for fire-safety applications, previous research has yet to harness their potential burning efficiency for enhanced combustion. This article presents laboratory studies of fire whirls initiated as pool fires, but where the fuel sits on a water surface, suggesting the idea of exploiting the high efficiency of fire whirls for oil-spill remediation. We show the transition from a pool fire, to a fire whirl, and then to a previously unobserved state, a “blue whirl.” A blue whirl is smaller, very stable, and burns completely blue as a hydrocarbon flame, indicating soot-free burning. The combination of fast mixing, intense swirl, and the water–surface boundary creates the conditions leading to nearly soot-free combustion. With the worldwide need to reduce emissions from both wanted and unwanted combustion, discovery of this state points to possible new pathways for reduced-emission combustion and fuel-spill cleanup. Because current methods to generate a stable vortex are difficult, we also propose that the blue whirl may serve as a research platform for fundamental studies of vortices and vortex breakdown in fluid mechanics.])>