Soot from an Apartment Fire
This is from an environmental tapelift collected in an
apartment that experienced a fire.
Reflected Darkfield Illumination
Definition/Function:
High hydrocarbon content soot agglomerates are black, very low reflectivity, globular,
loosely consolidated masses of submicrometer soot particles.
Significance in the Environment:
High hydrocarbon content soot agglomerates are typical of uncontrolled fires where
liquid fuels are involved. Liquid fuels include any
plastic that forms a liquid as it is heated. These particles have a very high
sticking coefficient and tend not to travel far from the source.
Characteristic Features:
The soot particles are organized into fractle submicrometer, micrometer, multiple
micrometer, and tens of micrometer units making up the single mass.
This opaque fractle structure from the nanometer scale through the tens of micrometers
is the characteristic feature.
Associated Particles:
References:
