Ignition and burning characterization of edible oils

Abstract

Regardless of the country or geographical area, kitchens are the rooms where fires are most likely to begin in homes, and cooking is the leading cause. Statistics consistently demonstrate that cooking fires primarily occur due to the ignition of cooking materials. Consequently, understanding the thermal properties and combustion behaviour of edible oils is crucial for developing effective fire prevention, detection and suppression strategies. In this work, three oils (soybean, rapeseed, and sunflower) are analysed, namely, their behaviour at high temperatures by identifying parameters such as the time to ignition, critical heat flux, thermal response parameter, and effective heat of combustion. The results obtained showed that edible oils required a high temperature to reach ignition, however, once reached the energy released was similar to other liquid fuels employed for combustion purposes.