Why is a burning candle a chemical change?
The fuel for a burning candle is the wax. There are many different types of wax with different chemical formulas, but they are all hydrocarbons. Hydrocarbons are molecules made from hydrogen and carbon.Burning the wax pulls the hydrogen and carbon in the wax apart and recombines them with oxygen from the atmosphere. This is an oxidation reaction. The resulting carbon dioxide and water are gases that disperse in the air.A burning candle is a chemical change because the paraffin wax, which is a hydrocarbon, undergoes a chemical reaction with oxygen to form water and carbon dioxide gas. Because the chemical structure of the paraffin has been changed, this is a chemical change.Change is described as physical or chemical. Physical changes alter the form that a substance or is originally in, but the substance be returned to the original state through physical means. Chemical changes, however, involve changing the structure of the material at the atomic level. In order to extract the original reactants.
