I am deeply indebted to Dr. Preston of SUNY Oswego, who published an exercise at http://www.oswego.edu/~srp/stats/burntime.htm entitled “Burning Matches,” in which he determines that 90% of Ohio Blue tip matches burn for between 55 and 61 seconds. I suspect his study includes the wooden part of the match burning as well. As for the chemical composition, the fuel of the reaction is red phosphorous, and the oxidizer is potassium chlorate (KClO3). Potassium chlorate weighs 1.4 kg/L, red phosphorous about 2.34 kg/L. Let’s assume those wacky chemists at Ohio Blue Tip know their stuff, and mix the match-heads at the proper ratio for total combustion. The chemical equation for the combustion of the two is
Building an ICBM out of matchstick heads and PVC [email protected].