Smoal

Smoal is the product of joke from the video web series, Red vs Blue. The joke that spawned my concept for smoal is as follows.

Tucker: So Church, what did you get everyone for Christmas? Coal again?

Church: Hell no. Coal costs like 5 bucks a ton. I'm not spending that much money on you guys. This year you are all getting a lump of smoal.

Tucker: Smoal? What the hell is that?

Church: It’s a knockoff synthetic coal. Just as good as the real thing. Except when you burn it, doesn't produce any heat. Just smoke.

Tucker: How the hell does that word?

Church: I don't know. Ask the fine makers of Smoal.

This humorous dialog got me thinking about whether it would be possible to create a compound that would not produce any heat when combusted.

The simple formula for combustion which assumes that the fuel contains Hydrogen and Carbon is bellow.
Fuel + Oxygen -> Heat +Water+ Carbon dioxide

The heat is produced because of the bonds formed between the Hydrogen and Oxygen and the Carbon and the Oxygen. The problem is that for it to be combustion and to produce a flame, the oxygen has to react with a fuel. Because of this, at some point during the reaction, bonds will form and heat will be given off. I believe that only way for Smoal to be possible would be to have an endothermic reaction taking place at the same time as the combustion. One way would be to mix copper carbonate with a hydrocarbon. Hypothetically, the hydrocarbon would burn and the heat would trigger the copper carbonate to decompose, hopefully using the heat to break the bonds. However, I am not sure if the copper carbonate would use enough heat in breaking the bonds, or if the reactions would stack, producing more heat instead of canceling each other out or if they would even be able to react simultaneously. Either way, it is a cool idea that I look forward to experimenting with (if I can convince my Chem teacher to help).