[CausticPotash]

So my friend and I were putting some calcium carbide in water inside of a lab glove and then taking a torch and making a hole in the glove that then produced quite a large flame that was just a very rich color of orange, my first question is:

I was reading earlier on a post on this forum about someone suggesting that someone use an acetylene flame to melt some aluminum, is there a way to tell how hot the flame of acetylene is by its color?
My second question is:
I was reading about how acetylene can sometimes have really toxic impurities, are there any government regulations on these (if there aren't there really should be!!!) and how do these impurities get into the calciumcarbide in the first place? (I know it comes from the coke, but does it just happen to be in the coke naturally?

My third question is:
When you burn acetylene what are the by-products (probably something toxic that will give me cancer or something  my friend and I were very foolish and hadn't read up completely on acetylene before we burned it and for 4 hours afterward we freaked out and lost all hope and thought we were going to die of arsine poisoning, but we didn't  )

[enahs]

When you burn acetylene what are the by-products

Acetylene is a hydrocarbon. What are the products of the combustion of any hydrocarbon?

C_xH_y + O₂ = ? + ?

I was reading earlier on a post on this forum about someone suggesting that someone use an acetylene flame to melt some aluminum, is there a way to tell how hot the flame of acetylene is by its color?

Yes, with fancy equipment and an extremely controlled reaction. Not by just looking at it burn. People that use acetylene for welding, over time, because they know at what temperatures the various metals they use can melt, they can tell by looking at the flame a temperature range of ~100^oC. But if you change the welding torch they are using, they can not.



As for the toxic question:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetylene#Toxic_effects

[hmx9123]

Understand that anyone saying you can use acetylene to melt aluminum was talking about an oxy-acetylene torch (oxygen and acetylene) like is used for welding.  That you can tell flame temperature, but it is a very different animal from burning free acetylene in a rubber glove.