A Heater Without a Flame

How does a soldier hiding from the enemy heat his meal rations without lighting a fire and giving away his position? The army’s answer to that is the Flameless Reaction Heater (FRH). The heater contains finely powdered iron and magnesium metals, and table salt. To start the reaction, the soldier adds a small amount of water from his canteen, and the water quickly boils as the highly exothermic reaction occurs. This reaction involves lattice energy or the energy required to dissolve the solute (in this case the metals and salt). 

So how does this help us in our everyday goings on? Well, these could be great for camping trips. Much too often, a camping group gets careless with their fire and it spreads, and can destroy habitat and possibly cause death for the campers as well as others nearby. Using a flameless reaction heater gives the same amount of heat for cooking but doesn't include the potentially harmful side effects of embers and sparks. Of course, as a heat source for warming people, it doesn't do very well because it concentrates the heat in a very small area and doesn't allow much to escape into the air.

 A packet of an FRH.

It can also be used as an insert to a lunch bag, if maybe you want to bring some lasagna from last night and heat it up. You don’t want to burn down the lunchroom by using the 20-year old microwave that has a 50-50 chance of exploding in your face, so you whip out an FRH and some water from the water cooler, and voila! You have hot lasagna while your co-workers look on in envy, limp turkey sandwiches uneaten as they gaze longingly at your hot meal*.

*Note: the author has nothing against turkey sandwiches, and finds them to be quite enjoyable on occasion. Tuna fish, on the other hand… that’s a different story.



By: Brandon Oviedo