[kevinnn]

ok, i am so tired of looking at so many diffrent sites and each one being just as hard to understand.  is there someone that can help me understand what oxidation is and why it is considered dangerious in some aspects.  like how come you can not take oxidizing agents on an airplane, i know they transfure oxygen but what does that tell me???  i understand the defnition of oxidation and everything but i really want to have a deep understanding of the basics of it.  thanks for any help. 

[Borek]

Oxidation is almost always exothermic and fast. And when the reaction mixture gets heated reaction gets even faster. Think fire, think explosion.

[408]

First separate science from TSA policy....

Oxidation is the removal of an electron from a reducing agent.  Often this releases energy, sometimes setting things on fire, or with a good mixture, exploding.

You cannot take *certain* oxidizing agents on an airplane, mostly the ones that have a history of being used for no-no purposes.  But whether something is an oxidizing agent depends on the strength of the reducing agent, ie water can be an oxidizing agent with stuff like LiAlH4 or Na, making blanket bans(by regulators that cannot tell sodium chloride apart from semtex) on oxidizing agents as silly as the nudie-scanners.