How to make a fireproof balloon

Making a fireproof balloon at home

Safe­ty pre­cau­tions

Ob­serve safe­ty pre­cau­tions when work­ing with fire.

Equip­ment

  • 2 bal­loons;
  • 50mL wa­ter;
  • sy­ringe;
  • can­dle;
  • lighter.

Step-by-step in­struc­tions

In­flate a bal­loon slight­ly. Add 50mL wa­ter us­ing a sy­ringe. Blow the bal­loon up to the de­sired size. In­flate the sec­ond bal­loon as you nor­mal­ly would, with­out wa­ter. Bring the bal­loons to a burn­ing can­dle one by one. Note that the “hy­drat­ed” bal­loon does not burst!

Process de­scrip­tion

The wa­ter stays in close con­tact with the bal­loon, pro­vid­ing a good ther­mal con­tact. When the bal­loon’s sur­face is heat­ed, the wa­ter heats up as well. The wa­ter’s high ther­mal con­duc­tiv­i­ty al­lows for the rapid dis­tri­bu­tion of en­er­gy through­out its vol­ume. Ul­ti­mate­ly, we are heat­ing not only the sur­face of the bal­loon, but all the wa­ter in it at once. Wa­ter’s boil­ing point is far be­low the melt­ing point of the bal­loon’s ma­te­ri­al, and wa­ter’s high heat ca­pac­i­ty makes it im­pos­si­ble to heat quick­ly, which means that the wa­ter can ef­fi­cient­ly pro­tect the bal­loon from the heat for a long time. This pro­tec­tion will work un­til the wa­ter boils away.

Try it