Bet that you enjoy a night out with bonfire while making stories with friends or family. The heat hitting your body makes the stay even more interesting. However, are you aware that the smoke that comes out of the wood fire contains a lot of toxic compounds that are actually harmful to your health? In fact, some of them are regarded to be cancer causing. For example, did you know that wood fire creates benzene? Here is how and why wood fire create benzene and other harmful chemicals.
Plants are considered to be living just as humans do. Thereofore, they are considered to have small aromatic compounds just as humans do. Chemically, it is upright to say that when compounds are subjected to high heat, then they are bound to break down into smaller compounds which are more stable. Consequntly, the aromatic compounds contained in plants are very plausible that under high heat, they break down to smaller and stable compounds of which benzene is one of them. It is important that benzene burns with a smoky flame because of the high content of carbon that it has. 104
When it burns, the carbon content becomes higher thus explaining the smoke produced.
The reactants required for the production of fire(tetrahedron) are fuel heat and oxygen. The products of the chemical reaction are water and carbon dioxide. However, due to other compounds and chemicals that plants carry which are aromatic in nature, it followa that other compunds are produced when combustion occurs such as benzene and formaldehyde which are the two carcinogens produced from burning wood. The production of these chemicals is dependednt on the ration of the reactants where less oxygenated fire is likely to produce less hydrocarbons. Not a lot of people knew of the toxins produced by wood fire. For example, a lot of people don’t know that benzene is produced. However, do you know that benzene is highly flammable? Therefore, it is likely that benzene burns up as soon as it is produced with a smoky flame. For this reason, it is very unlikely that benzene lasts for long or even escapes the chimney thus explaining why there is no so much of side effects from benzene for people who are usually exposed to wood fire. 104