If water is heaten up to ridicilously high temperatures, is it possible for the atoms in the molecules to lose their bonds?
And if it is possible, isn't this some kind of chain-reaction?
Like you heat up water –> steam, keep heating it, then wamm you get 1 oxygen and 2 hydrogen atoms, and at that temperature they most likely will self combust creating more heat to make more steam turn into oxygen & hydrogen etc.
Extra question: If you got 1 mole oxygen and 2 mole hydrogen in a container, will it turn into 1 mole water? Or does the pressure matter? Or does the temperature matter?
Best Answer
Whenever you have a chemical reaction like $2H_2O \rightleftharpoons 2H_2 + O_2$, it goes both ways. In this reaction, the products on the right have more chemical energy, so going to the right requires energy input, and going to the left releases energy, by the same amount.
Under any conditions, the reaction is running in both directions, but usually at different rates. So in any situation, you will have a predominance of one side over the other. By changing the temperature and/or pressure, you can change the relative reaction rates, but in no case is energy created or destroyed.