Question

What are five examples of combustion in your everyday life?

Answer 1

Hint : Combustion is a scientific word for burning. Any process that happens in daily life which undergoes a change in their composition while burning, to release heat and light can be counted as combustion. During combustion, transfer of energy is taking place.

Complete Step By Step Answer:
Combustion of a substance occurs when it reacts with oxygen to form an oxide. During this process, heat is produced. This is easy to explain as combustion is literally burning of a substance, where it consumes oxygen to keep itself burning. Hydrocarbons undergo combustion to produce carbon dioxide and water. Since energy in the form of heat is produced in the combustion, it is an exothermic process. Moreover, light is also emitted.
In our daily life, the energy that we need to cook food, generate electricity et cetera is obtained from the combustion of appropriate fuel. Some examples of combustion in daily life are:
- Combustion of LPG from gas cylinders allows us to cook food, boil water et cetera.
- Combustion of fuels like petrol, diesel, CNG to run vehicles
- Combustion undergone while burning wood, coal et cetera to produce fire for household purposes
- Combustion of Phosphorus undergone when a matchstick is lighted
- Combustion in thermal power plants to produce energy for daily needs

Note :
The products usually obtained when a substance undergoes combustion are carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, various nitrogen oxides et cetera. For combustion to take place, a fuel to burn, a good supply of oxygen rich air and heat is a must. The heat supplied has to be of optimum temperature, namely ignition temperature, for the process of combustion to occur.