Flame turning green when torching copper, dangerous or not?

[PrematureEvaporation]

So I was watching a video of someone using their Anvil with a pretty big torch. They were heating on the thermal battery and the flame started turning green where the copper was.

I’ve been an Anvil user on and off since the first CopperCore model and I’ve never had a green flame. Not even for a second or two. In the comments someone was saying that it’s unsafe and stuff is potentially being released if it’s that hot.

Just thought I’d ask the more knowledgeable members on here if that’s actually the case?

I don’t want to start a copper/copper oxide safety debate, as we all know how those go

Merely curious what’s actually going on in this specific situation and if it truly is unsafe. Like I say, I’ve never had a green flame torching the copper on mine so it was quite unusual to see.

 

[Radwin Bodnic]

It could be burning copper. That does turn a butane flame green. His torch must be seriously hot though...
Btw burning is a super fast oxydation...

 

[PrematureEvaporation]

It could be burning copper. That does turn a butane flame green. His torch must be seriously hot though...
Btw burning is a super fast oxydation...

The torch was like a blazer big shot sort of flame, definitely butane but on the larger side.

By burning copper what do you mean exactly? And super fast oxidation? You might need to simplify that for someone of lesser intellect such as myself.. haha. I assume burning the copper is a distinct stage further on from simply heating it to vape temps?

And is it bad from a health or device integrity perspective?

 

[PrematureEvaporation]

delete pls

 

[PrematureEvaporation]

I’ve added some stills from the video here, showing the timing of heat application and the growing intensity of the green flame

 

[Radwin Bodnic]

Oxidation is when an atome or molecule (the oxidant) steals electrons to an another atome or molecule (the reducing agent).

This can happen between salts and metals (takes time) and we call it rust.

This can happen real fast under high temperatures and then it is part of combustion.

Copper is the reducing agent and oxygen is the oxidant. When it happen slowly in wet conditions it forms a green layer on the metal. When it happen real fast because of combustion it forms green flames.

I think he's torching too much the copper.

Edit : not sure about how nasty can be the fumes...

 

[Bakin4Life]

Not a chemist, but from my dime store research, the fumes are the worst part, although there's a few things they'll bother besides your respiratory tract (which is probably most at risk).

The 'good' news is that it apparently takes several hours of near-continuous exposure to start doing 'real' harm.
If you wanted to be belt / suspenders safe, I'd wave the device for a second or two, away from your nose / mouth, after heating. But ONLY if you get the green flame.

Keeping the flame low enough to not produce oxidation should eliminate any need to disperse oxidants. An obvious statement, I suppose.

Perhaps oversimplifying, but I'm starting to see this like the old chart that S&B (?) put up online years ago that so many referenced. I.e.; a couple of the listed carcinogens were indeed created at elevated temps (methane was the 'big' one, as I remember -?). BUT -- it was also shown that you'd acquire more methane (by volume) if you walked around in a big city (from automobile exhaust, etc.). Reciting this from memory, but the idea is the same, even if I named the wrong compound.

TL; DR: Green flame is bad, but probably won't harm you in these small amounts. Avoid overheating, and you should be fine.

Sorry for all the qualifiers ('apparently', 'probably', etc.) I don't have a lab (or sufficient education / info) to refute / confirm 100%, in one post.

 

[Radwin Bodnic]

Thats still strange because the flame don't look strong enough to provoke these reactions in less than 30 seconds.
Maybe the copper has oxidized slowly and he is burning the oxyde ?

 

[Bakin4Life]

Potential build-up of oxide, that the hotter flame was then able to release? But this would be two different reactions, I think.

I'll say this... I'm a RTL guy, but I prefer lower temp heat-ups. And I have NEVER seen green flame from my analog devices ([well, maybe a Dynavap -?, once upon a time?] But that's a different animal, vs the Anvil / Dani)

 

[PrematureEvaporation]

Thanks for the answers everyone!

So I think from your answers you can sum it up as such - it’s likely unhealthy in an objective sense but also somewhat relative. I do think some of us vape heads sometimes forget these unhealthy things given off by our devices are nothing compared to what we’d breathe in walking down the street breathing in all the pollution already in the air. Or combusting

I do agree that it’s odd that it happened so quickly with what is a big torch but not a “biiiiiig torch” like you see used for plumbing works and such. I’ve used a torch of that size on my Anvil, but have always ran it a little bigger flame than that and then heated further up on the SS “belly” of the ThermoCore. Watched a lot of user videos too, and this is the first time I’ve seen this happen.

Either way I’m glad the Tornado has eliminated a lot of the exposed copper and side stepped all the copper what ifs that often plagued the Anvil thread.

 

[Gorf]

Yeah, copper burns green. Different elements burn different colors. In chemistry the 'flame test' is one way to ID materials. The heat excites electrons and then when they calm down they emit various wavelengths of light, colors. Various copper oxides are fairly safe to consume.

Flame Test Colors and Procedure (Chemistry)

Learn how to perform the flame test in chemistry. Get a chart of flame test colors and learn how the technique works.

sciencenotes.org