[Madidus_Scientia]

What? It would burn as long as it doesn't burn?

[Chemistry4me]

It melts without burning (i.e, catch on fire)

[dentstudent]

Perhaps you need to go back and find a definition of "melting"?

I am absolutely no chemist, so take this with a pinch of salt. If you heat ice, the energy it receives mobilises the water molecules and allows them to become free from the crystal structure. But they are still linked/attracted, but in a much looser framework, and so become liquid. Could it be the case that carbon molecules do not have the same level of attraction, and therefore go straight into the gaseous state? OR - perhaps it DOES become a liquid, it's just that the state has such a narrow window that it evaporates without our own perceiving it?

I am quite open to all the above being total dogs' danglers.....

[Chemistry4me]

on wikipedia it says the melting point of carbon is 3652 °C.

Hmmm... I've just noticed that on my periodic table, it states that the boiling point of carbon is 3827 degrees but it doesn't have the melting point so going by that data I assume that carbon sublimes. But what should we believe? Wikipedia or a good old periodic table of the elements?

[dentstudent]

Wiki (again)

At atmospheric pressure it (Carbon) has no actual melting point as its triple point is at 10 MPa (100 bar) so it sublimates above 4000 K.[13]

[Chemistry4me]

So where does that get us to?

[dentstudent]

I guess that it means that in atmospheric presures, carbon stays in its solid state up to around 4000°C, after which it sublimates. I can't think that there would be too many domestic bonfires which would get up to those temperatures!

[Chemistry4me]

I think Madidus_Scientia has fallen asleep

[dentstudent]

I think Madidus_Scientia has fallen asleep

That used to happen during chemistry lessons to me too.

[Chemistry4me]

Haha, me too!

[lightarrow]

Even in the absence of oxygen, wood decomposes at high temperatures into hydrocarbons, methyl alcohol, acetone and other volatile substances (it's for this reason that wood burns making flames); as sophiecentaur said, it doesn't stays wood anylonger and it becomes charcoal. At still higher temperatures charcoal decomposes again losing (essentially) hydrocarbons and becoming almost pure carbon; then at ~ 4000°C it sublimates, as already said.

One of the first laboratory experiences we made at school was "wood distillation". The product is essentially methyl alcohol (which old name is infact "wood spirits" or "wood alcohol"  for this reason).