If oxygen is the fuel to a fire what is the wood?

Question

If oxygen is the fuel to a fire what is the wood?

Answer 1

cellulose or packed energy. Sunlight goes somewhere....energy is converted to matter through photosynthesis....lots of glucose and cellulose.

It's not about oxygen as being the only fuel or energy. It's a chemical reaction between all things...to release energy from the wood.

"It is actually pretty impressive that the simple CO2 and H2O molecules can be combined to form the fairly complex C6H12O6 organic molecule of glucose! Glucose is the ONLY molecule that photosynthesis can create! A plant uses the (previously sunlight) energy in these molecules to modify them to make all the other organic molecules on which lifeforms depend. Specifically, plants often remove one water from the glucose and use that bond to chain together long and strong molecules of C6H10O5, which is called cellulose. This is important here because cellulose is what nearly all of wood is made of!"

"This is for 100 pounds of wood, so we can say that each pound of wood contains around 7,200 Btus of chemical energy in it. Absolutely dry wood contains around 8,660 Btu/pound in it a quantity that is generally referred to as the HHV (high heat value) of the wood, which you can confirm from many published sources."

Answer 2

They are both fuel. Heat makes them react in such a way that smoke, ash, and more heat are produced.

Answer 3

Some one needs to mention the word "catalyst" to their answer.

Answer 4

technically when wood gets hot it releases chemicals gases and that is what feeds the fire. There is a oxidation reaction occuring when you get heat + wood, so wood + heat = oxygen and oxygen + fire = more fire heh something like that

Answer 5

actually oxygen is not the fuel ,oxygen is only the supporter of combustion ,it combines with the wood molecules(carbon) to produce carbon-di-oxide , water and heat ............