Melting is a physical process that transforms a substance from a solid into a liquid. When a substance is heated to its melting point, the vibration energy between the molecules exceeds the adhesion force of the solid state lattice arrangement.

The particles of the substance break free from the lattice into liquid form. For wood to melt, therefore, it must undergo this process. Read on to discover the answer to the question ‘can you melt wood?’

What exactly stops wood from melting?

When melting a substance, its chemical makes up remains the same. Taking ice and water for example; the latter is the molten form of the former. However, they share the same substance: H2O.

When you try to melt wood, it oxidizes before it melts. This happens because of its chemical composition that is mainly made up of cellulose, water, lignin, and other substances. As a result, wood has long-chain organic molecules that once heated; decompose to form other compounds such as carbon dioxide, methanol, water, and charcoal. During this process, the physical structure of wood is destroyed and it cannot return to the original composition.  That is why wood cannot melt.

Can wood melt in a vacuum?

Since wood is oxidized when heated in the presence of oxygen, you may be tempted to heat it in a vacuum. Heating wood in a vacuum still fails to melt the substance. Only water and other volatile materials evaporate from the wood. The long cellulose fibers prevent it from transitioning into liquid. Heat however breaks down the carbonyl bonds in the wood to form charcoal and carbon dioxide. 

When heated in a perfect vacuum, wood will decompose into charcoal and other organic gasses and liquids. Carbon has a sublimation temperature of 3800 ° C.

How is wood different from other substances that can melt?

As you may already know, most sold substances melt into liquid form. And when subjected to more heat, they are transformed into gas. However, you need to note that not every hard substance is in solid form. Solids are purely crystalline substances with lattice bonds that are closely packed together.  In a layman’s language, solids are substances that are composed of a single element. Such a substance has constant intermolecular linkages throughout its form.

On the other hand, wood is different from all these substances as it is a non-crystalline solid that is composed of different compounds. These compounds are tightly bound using complex molecular structures. The problem is that each of these compounds has its own melting points.

When you heat the wood, water will evaporate first leaving entangled lignin and cellulose. These compounds then react with the atmosphere to form charcoal. This process goes by the scientific name pyrolysis.

If you try to melt wood, a different chemical reaction occurs. As wood is subjected to heat in the presence of air, its chemical composition changes as it decompose into other chemicals. The byproduct of this process is heat.

Since wood is composed of chemicals such as lignin, cellulose, and water, combusting it will create products such as charcoal, carbon dioxide, methanol, and water. But unlike other substances that can melt, cooling the resultant substances does not turn back to its original composition. Combustion has a specific temperate at which it happens. If you raise the temperature, the combustion process will become quicker. However, if this temperature is lower than the melting point of the substance, the substance will never melt. Instead, it will turn into other chemicals long before it can melt.

At what temperature does wood begin to burn?

When subjected to temperatures of about 500 to 600 degrees Fahrenheit, wood will begin to burn. Pyrolysis of wood is a self sustaining process that produces a lot of heat. And the more heat is produced, the more the process becomes intense.

When wood is burning, it produces other chemicals such as methane that burn by themselves. This produces more heat that causes the remaining char to decompose into finer substances such as magnesium, calcium, and potassium.

It seems that there is no way to melt wood naturally

Looking at it from a theory perspective, it might be possible to melt wood in a very controlled environment. Please note the keyword here is ‘might’. At standard temperature and pressure, the melting point of carbon is around 3500 degrees Celsius. There are machines that can control temperature until this point but there exist no records of such a hypothesis ever being implemented. And until science proves otherwise, the answer to the question ‘can you melt wood?’ will still remain a NO!

Although there are many theoretical explanations to how it is possible to melt wood, (some convincing, some not), they are very different from what happens in real life scenario. And as such, we can’t rely on them to answer the question ‘can you melt wood?’ in the end, we conclude that it is naturally not possible to melt wood.