I’m certain that all metals are flammable if you try hard enough, because all it takes is oxidation. Quite a number of them can burn in a self-sustaining manner in terrestrial conditions, though, mostly provided if and only if you manage to have enough surface area of the stuff available in one place. Powdering them usually works for that. Or, if you’d like to watch some iron burn, a fun science fact is that you can light a wad of regular old steel wool like the kind you’d buy at the grocery store as if it were a cotton ball. The finer sized the better, and you should probably also do this outside.
My admittedly not great understanding of it was along the lines of some metals are too good at conducting heat and would basically put their own fires out in most circumstances. I do not know if that is correct
Maybe, but I can tell you that copper’s thermal conductivity is better than e.g. gold, and copper can absolutely burn in open air if the particle sizes are small enough. Aluminum will too, of course.
I’m not about to try it with my meager supply of gold. The stuff is damned expensive at the moment.
I’m certain that all metals are flammable if you try hard enough, because all it takes is oxidation. Quite a number of them can burn in a self-sustaining manner in terrestrial conditions, though, mostly provided if and only if you manage to have enough surface area of the stuff available in one place. Powdering them usually works for that. Or, if you’d like to watch some iron burn, a fun science fact is that you can light a wad of regular old steel wool like the kind you’d buy at the grocery store as if it were a cotton ball. The finer sized the better, and you should probably also do this outside.
My admittedly not great understanding of it was along the lines of some metals are too good at conducting heat and would basically put their own fires out in most circumstances. I do not know if that is correct
Maybe, but I can tell you that copper’s thermal conductivity is better than e.g. gold, and copper can absolutely burn in open air if the particle sizes are small enough. Aluminum will too, of course.
I’m not about to try it with my meager supply of gold. The stuff is damned expensive at the moment.