KClO3 Experience

[tenneyguy]

I described it elsewhere tonight, before I knew of "Safety" category here. Again, Potassium Chlorate, sugar, shaved wax, and sulfur, "triturated" together in porcelain mortar & pestle, deflagrated very fast, 2nd degree burns, 13 years old!

 

Best philosophy is Chlorate, NO Sulfur!

 

Even better: NO CHLORATE!

tenneyguy

[Arthur]

Chlorate formed an essential part of the development of firework comps because it was the first available oxidiser that would make colours. It's still essential but only in small niche markets. For most purposes there is a better oxidiser, for those purposes where chlorate is essential there are many safe ways of working.

[Simoski]

I put chlorate , black copper oxide and aluminum power in a mortar and pestle and began mixing ( basically copper thermite with chlorate).... thanks be to God that I was wearing safety goggles because it burst into flame sending molten metal all over my goggles. I would be blind otherwise.

[nils]

I recently tried what happens when I replace KNO3 with KClO3 in sugar rocket fuel.

Composition was:

65 KClO3

32 suckrose

6 dextrose

1 yellow iron oxide

That all multiplied by 4.

 

Then I dissolved componens in water and then started to boil out the water.

When most of the water was evaporized and the temperature was 110 C, that mixture self ignited and burned away in a fraction of a second. Big fireball and a lot of smoke.

Nothing bad happened because I worked outside my garage and used basic protection.