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Storing Aluminium based compositions


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Posted

Hi guys, i am new here, I have been making pyrotechnics for around a year rught now and just made some aluminium based flash powder and i know that you shouldnt really store it as spontaneous ignition might occur. I alsi made some fountain composition consisting of

 

Kno3

Charcoal

Sulfur

Aluminium

Mealpowder

 

Is this stuff safe to store (i only have 10g)

Thanks for your replies in advance!

Posted

Scorpion,

That nitrate-based flash powder is subject to decomposition if it accumulates moisture, but it's not terribly reactive. Just keep it VERY dry. Unless it actually gets 'damp', about the only bad thing that will happen is that it will lose its potency.

 

But that's hardly 'flash powder' by modern terms. Even if 10g of it were to spontaneously ignite, it would do little damage, unless it started a fire! It certainly would NOT 'explosively damage' anything. In fact, I doubt that it will even 'explosively damage' a contained 'salute' made of that material. <grin>

 

I imagine you must live in a place where potassium perchlorate is unavailable. The most common 'flash' these days is 7:3 KClO4/Aluminum.

 

Lloyd

Posted
Thanks for your reply! I will store my flsh and fountain powder in a vacuum container. Yes i sadly live in an area where you can't get potassium perchlorate, but i am planning on making some from potassium chloride
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