It’s hard to believe, but the answer is “yes”! Not only flour; Powdered sugar, coal, wood dust, which seems very innocent, also has an explosive feature like a fuel when it reaches suitable conditions.
This event, known as a dust explosion, has killed hundreds of people and injured thousands from past to present. Part of the occasional occurrence of these events is because the danger of dust explosions is not well known.
You may have witnessed on social media that waiters sprinkle a handful of flour in the air and burn it while making presentations.
This action they do is actually an old tradition. Of course, this is just the show part of the job these days. In the past, bakers used to sprinkle a handful of flour in the air and ignite it with a flame to get rid of flies and insects in the kitchens. Thus, they were able to get rid of these insects by scaring them with the sound of flashing and explosion. This tradition has a long history and this action was an effective method that really worked.
A dust explosion in 1785 made the seriousness of the situation real.
Flour particles suspended in the air in an oven in Turin, Italy, caused an explosion when a kerosene lamp was triggered, and luckily there were no casualties. At first it was not clear why this explosion occurred because it was an unprecedented event.
The big explosion that took place in the USA in 1981 brought this event back to the agenda. After this incident, in which 9 people lost their lives and many injured, certain standards were brought to the grain stores.
The most devastating dust explosion in recent times occurred in 2008.
The explosion at the Imperial Sugar sugar/starch production facility in the United States resulted in 14 deaths, 36 injuries and horrific destruction.
White flour consists mostly of starch.
Starch, which consists of sugar molecules chained together, is a carbohydrate. Carbohydrates are components that contain carbon, and all components containing carbon are easily combustible.
You’ve probably seen marshmallows being cooked on a campfire in the movies, and usually the marshmallow immediately catches fire and burns.
The reason why it catches fire easily is because of the starch it contains.
But why does the flour explode?
Flour and many other carbohydrates (powdered sugar, pudding mix, powdered milk) become explosive when suspended in powder form. If the amount of carbohydrates in the air reaches 50 grams per cubic meter, even a small spark is enough to ignite this carbohydrate.
Flour powder particles are so small that they are in contact with oxygen, and when one burns, they ignite the other particles very quickly. Excessive amount of flour in the environment also causes serial explosions. These explosions, which can generally occur in closed areas such as warehouses, can cause greater damage due to the pressure.
Finally, let’s give you some information to make you feel comfortable:
Flours used at home are not dangerous because the dangerous situation is flour dust mixed with the air. A very large amount of flour is required to have 50 grams of flour powder per cubic meter, and this can only happen in large warehouses.
Sources: How Stuff Works, Wikipedia, Security at Work
28713
