I know a lot of people put dirt and other organic material in an oven to sterilize it. This is a PSA to anyone who might put coconut fiber in an oven to sterilize with dry heat.
I did this today, and it auto-ignited at less than 400 F, which is a much lower autoignition temperature compared to regular cellulose (254 C [489 F]).
At first it smelled like a campfire. Then, I got a delicious aroma of BBQ chicken (the smell was spot on, not even joking). Not soon after this point, my oven was filled with smoldering coconut fiber smoke, which wasn't as much on fire, as it was just smoking.
I waited too long to remove it, and my house filled with an insane amount of smoke. The high amount of VOCs indicates to me the presence of some volatile compounds in the coconut fiber which were liberated by the high heat, and may be responsible for the lower autoignition temperature.
Edited by drtrmiller, August 29 2019 - 8:41 AM.
