If red hot metal is put on paper in a vacuum, what happens to the paper?

Question

I am asking out of pure curiosity. Without fire, how would the paper burn? Would it just blacken, or stay the same and just be really hot paper. Or would it still somehow turn to ash? It's too specific to search for on a search engine, so I don't know if anyone has done an experiment for it so I'm wondering if anyone with the knowledge could give a theory for the results.

Answer 1

When organic material is heated without oxygen, it undergoes pyrolysis (breakdown by heat). This will produce organic liquids, gases, but mostly will form carbon (like charcoal or soot). Soot is the unburned pyrolytic residue due to the breaking down of organic compounds without burning (with oxygen). It would have to be hot enough, otherwise, you would just get dried-out crispy paper.