Is it possible to have heatless flames?
by 
Chris Hansen
ANSWERS: 8
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I do not know if you can have heatless flames ( I doubt it) but water can boil cold in high altitudes.
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I believe it would just be light?
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I don't think so. Here is why. Heat is a nothing more than the kinetic energy of particles (atoms and molecules) moving in random directions, as opposed to the kinetic energy of an object (like a car or a baseball) moving in a single direction. Any form of energy, including light, can be transformed into heat. That is what happens to light that is absorbed, and isn't re-emitted by matter. The reason flames (regions of glowing gas) emit light is that some process such as combustion has excited some of the gas particles enough that they emit photons of light when they decay back to a ground state or less excited state. In simplified terms, for a particular wavelength of light to emitted requires a certain temperature to achieved by the gas doing the emission. I'm not sure of the exact numbers, but I'm pretty sure that emission of light in the visible region requires a pretty hot gas. Even within the visible spectrum, some wavelengths are hotter than others. For example, red (longer wavelength) is hotter than red. Infra-red radiation is cooler than visible, which is in turn cooler than ultra-violet. Etc.
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I think heat is created when the net enthalpy (change in heat) is negative, and the reaction is called exothermic. When the enthalpy is positive, the reaction is endothermic. So a heatless flame must occur when the reaction is endothermic, or even when the net enthalpy is zero.
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All matter vibrates, thus all matter has heat. A flame is merely matter being converted into another state: Solid subliming into a gas and plasma. So by definition a flame has mass and by association a flame must have heat (regardless of the fact that in order to have a flame the matter must be giving off heat in order to ingite the rest of the matter around it to sustain the flame otherwise it will go out and no longer be a flame).
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Sorry, meant to comment
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There is something known as "cold fire", caused by something bursting into flames at cryogenic temperatures (-100c or below)
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Are we talking about girlfriends? Then definitely.
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