Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Is Powdered Coffee Creamer Flammable?

Last week, I was in the break room at work and a co-worker of mine was making a cup of coffee. She went for the mysterious powdered creamer-in-a-can and I had to interject.  I explained to her that a general rule of thumb that one should live by is to refuse any ingredient that can also be used as an ingredient in a deadly weapon.

Oh no, think it is just an urban legend?


I'll take my coffee black please.

I dug into this topic a little further and found that I was both right and wrong at the same time (which if you ask my wife, is usually the case).

Powdered coffee creamer is most certainly flammable, but not only due to it's chemical make-up (Thanks, but I'll stick with soy). 

Back in the late-1800s, explosions at flour mills were commonplace.  Before industry standards were in place and before the advancement of technology, a flour mill had the potential to light up faster than a matchstick.  The reason?  Airborne flour dust within the mill.

A dust explosion can occur if there is a highly concentrated amount of powdered combustible material (dust, flour, powdered coffee creamer...) and an ignition source.  
As for an ignition source, lets just say I found many "creative" individuals while doing my research who were able to harness this maniacal fuel source and create a bomb-like device.

One of those science fair projects came straight out of MythBusters a couple of years ago:


So in conclusion I guess I will let my co-workers drink their coffee in peace, unless of course it is Mexican day in the cafeteria...

2 comments:

  1. Ah yes! I learned about coffee creamer being flammable at the Renaissance festival this year. They had a show called Dr. Kaboom's science show (or something like that). Anyway, one of the things he did was spraying powdered creamer into the air and lighting it on fire! He didn't mention that it was creamer until more than half way through the show. When he would puff it into the air it actually looked like a mist of water. I'm not sure which was more mind blowing, the fact that I thought he had figured out how to light water on fire or that the "water" was flammable creamer?

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