'bang-gas'), although some authors define knallgas to be a generic term for the mixture of fuel with the precise amount of oxygen required for complete combustion, thus 2:1 oxyhydrogen would be called "hydrogen-knallgas".
The amount of heat energy released is independent of the mode of combustion, but the temperature of the flame varies.
[6] The maximum temperature of about 2,800 °C (5,100 °F) is achieved with an exact stoichiometric mixture, about 700 °C (1,300 °F) hotter than a hydrogen flame in air.
This is often demonstrated in classroom environments in which teachers fill a balloon with the gas, due to the easy access of hydrogen and oxygen.
The foundations of the oxy-hydrogen blowpipe were laid down by Carl Wilhelm Scheele and Joseph Priestley around the last quarter of the eighteenth century.
The oxy-hydrogen blowpipe itself was developed by the Frenchman Bochard-de-Saron, the English mineralogist Edward Daniel Clarke and the American chemist Robert Hare in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
[12] It produced a flame hot enough to melt such refractory materials as platinum, porcelain, fire brick, and corundum, and was a valuable tool in several fields of science.