Question

can you tell why cooking oil doesn't catch fire easily when it is kept on fry pan for a long period of time

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Answer 1

Explanation:

For the same reason that water eventually boils if it’s left on the burning stove for a long enough time: the temperature of the substance in question rises, and eventually a chemical reaction takes place. In the case of water, which doesn’t burn, that reaction is a phase shift that involves boiling into steam—vaporizing. In the case of a volatile substance like oil, it first begins to vaporize, but it then reaches its autoignition temperature and catches fire. Same thing would happen if you heated up a pan full of gasoline, only in that case the reaction would happen much faster, and at a much lower temperature (424 Celsius for canola oil, 280 Celsius for gasoline).