Vegetable oil is one of the most popular and commonly used oil around. You’ll hardly find an average to complete kitchen that doesn’t have vegetable oil among its food stocks.
It is used for so many kitchen functions including frying, making of stews, etc. However, should we be bothered about its use, and is it a huge fire hazard that could cause a stir? Is vegetable oil flammable? From a technical perspective, vegetable oil is not flammable.
The flashpoint of vegetable oil is very high, which shows that it cannot be seen as a hazardous substance. Most kinds of vegetable oils have flashpoints of about 600 degrees Fahrenheit (315 degrees Celsius) and therefore are not considered flammable.
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What Is a Vegetable Oil?
The phrase ‘vegetable oil’ is mostly used to connote any type of cooking oil gotten from plant material, contrary to animal fats such as butter and lard. For instance, in the above cases, canola oil, sunflower oil, corn oil, olive oil, soybean, etc. are all seen as vegetable oils.
However, specifically, we have a cooking oil that is precisely called ‘vegetable oil’, which is often produced from pure soybean oil or in some cases, a mixture of soybean and corn oil.
It is referred to as vegetable oil rather than soybean for marketing’s sake, although it also helps producers to mix other oils such as corn oil, with the soybean oil without making any changes to the labels.
Odorless, flavorless, and light-colored, vegetable oil is an oil that is ideal for cooking, frying, and salad dressings. Every oil that is produced from plants, whether it is gotten from seeds, grains, nuts, or fruits is regarded as vegetable oil.
However, whenever you see a labeled bottle with the inscription ‘vegetable oil’, it is usually soybean oil.
Vegetable oil is made up of a complex blend of triacylglycerols (95%) with little amounts of diacylglycerols (5%) and others like tocopherols/tocotrienols and phytosterol esters/phytosterols.
It is produced by grinding dried soybeans, spinning them, and separating the oil from the plant element before distilling and refining it to get rid of dirt and other germs that can affect its flavor, color, and scent.
See Also: Can Salt Catch Fire?
Is Vegetable Oil Flammable?
To put it simply, vegetable oil is not technically flammable, and here’s why. The reason why vegetable oils and other oils, in general, are flammable is that their flashpoints are very high to the extent that they aren’t considered hazardous elements.
For them to flame up, you must have heated them to a very high temperature before a flame or spark can ignite them.
But, what is a flashpoint and why do we use it as a point of emphasis? A flashpoint of any substance is said to be the temperature at which a liquid emits substantial vapors to attract fire with the help of a spark or naked flame.
People often mistake a flashpoint to be an auto-ignition point, which is the temperature at which the elements attract fire even without the help of naked flame or spark. However, a flashpoint just serves as a separating line between flammable and combustible.
What Is the Flashpoint of Vegetable Oil?
Earlier in this article, we briefly defined what a flashpoint means. It is seen as the temperature at which an oil produces flammable vapors that, when exposed to heat, can cause a fire.
As we earlier mentioned, the flashpoint is the cut-off point between a flammable and combustible liquid, and this average flashpoint should be around 100°F (38°C).
In other words, anything less than that is considered flammable. Specifically, the average flash point temperature of every vegetable oil such as peanut, soybean, palm, cottonseed, sunflower, safflower, coconut, etc. is about 600° to 650° F (315° to 320°C). For a pure vegetable oil, its flashpoint is around 600°F (315°C).
In other words, at this rate, it is not considered flammable, because it is burning above the average temperature mark (199.4°F) that can be considered flammable.
This means that it if burns below the 199.4°F mark around a feasible flame, it will catch flames, even burn fiercely such that it’ll be difficult to extinguish.
Can Vegetable Oil Catch on Fire?
Yes, vegetable oil can catch on fire or even burn. Considering the damage cooking has caused to most homes as regards fire outbreaks, and some of them caused by cooking oils, including vegetable oil, you wouldn’t argue against this.
Most vegetable oils can catch fire when it is at 450°F, and it won’t take long for them to get to this point.
It will always give you a warning sign through smoking, which shows that it is at its smoke point, therefore drawing nearer to its flashpoint, where it will probably catch fire. This can be commonly seen when you’re cooking over a gas flame.
At this point, you’ll probably emit sufficient vapor for it to catch fire, and once it catches fire, you can hardly quench it, unless with the right extinguisher.
Can Vegetable Oil Spontaneously Combust?
Many people fail to understand that vegetable oil is moderate to highly prone to attract spontaneous combustion.
You can take an example from a farmer that stores wet hay; once it dries out, it tends to decompose and results in heat and fires. Failure to let the heat dissipate could increase to the extent of igniting combustibles.
For vegetable oil, it would hardly catch fire when put in a properly-sealed and stored bottle. However, if it is dried up on rags, it can combust.
Vegetable oil is part of organic oil, which features self-heating elements that can cause fire and combustion spontaneously. Therefore, you must wash off the rags or dispose of them properly to avoid any potential fire outbreak.