working with chlorates

[sparky]

I have been thinking about starting to work with chlorates i just got done reading bill ofcas working safely with chlorates and think i might give them a try. any of you guys have any experiences to share accidents or any other experiences positive or negative

[Swany]

To get a feel for it, mix a small small amount (couple grains) with some sulfur 50:50 by volume. Put it in a mortar and pestle and play with it, get a feel for its sensitivity. Or just put it on cement and hammer it. Drop it onto a hot plate, et cetera. If you are safety concious and handle it with great respect, you should be okey.

 

If it does not do anything unexpected, do not loose respect for it; thats generally when you loose your eyebrows, fingers, left arm, face, life, classy good looks, et cetera.

[sparky]

To get a feel for it, mix a small small amount (couple grains) with some sulfur 50:50 by volume. Put it in a mortar and pestle and play with it, get a feel for its sensitivity. Or just put it on cement and hammer it. Drop it onto a hot plate, et cetera. If you are safety concious and handle it with great respect, you should be okey.

 

If it does not do anything unexpected, do not loose respect for it; thats generally when you loose your eyebrows, fingers, left arm, face, life, classy good looks, et cetera.

have you used chlorates and have you had any problems

[Swany]

Yes and no, respectively.

[sparky]

any spontanious combustion issues

[hst45]

any spontanious combustion issues

No, I've never burst into flames.....but thanks for asking.

[NightHawkInLight]

Bit of an old topic to re open but I have an opinion worth sharing. KClO3 is my favorite oxidizer, it seems to do everything better. Colors in particular are very easily obtainable and are quite vibrant in most cases. I am particularly drawn to the pure white it will burn with the addition of charcoal.

I feel this oxidizer is even superior to expensive ammonium perchlorate in some key areas. In several of my compositions it can replace ammonium perchlorate and will speed the burn of the composition (making the stars appear larger) with no negative effect on color. A much easier to ignite composition is also obtained, which calls for less priming. Speaking of prime, another benefit is that it will not react with KNO3 to produce the hygroscopic ammonium nitrate as ammonium perc will.

I believe sensitivity to be near irrelevant if you keep in your mind that you are working with a dangerous chemical. Obviously it takes more special care to keep chemicals separated. For example never have sulfur within ten feet of chlorate when being stored, and never have one of the two in the same room when a container of the other is being opened. It's a simple step.

One thing to note is you should not take my advice by itself as I have not done as much as I would like to with chlorate. It is my favorite oxidizer, but I do not have much of it so I have been forced to use it sparingly.

Best of luck, do some more research.

-Ben

[asilentbob]

Generally ammonium perchlorate is superior in instances where only gaseous reaction products are desired... like composite rocket propellants, stars that have relatively less smoke, lance, etc. If everything is smoked up enough it really takes away from the beauty of a display.

 

Ammonium perchlorate stars can be potassium perchlorate base primed and used as is or then primed with BP with no problems.

 

I won't go into sensitivity...

[DeAdFX]

If you exclude KClO3/Calomel/Paris green blue formula ammonium perchlorate makes a pretty nice blue. I also find that ammonium perchlorate can take much more of a beating/abuse than Potassium Chlorate. I personally like using Potassium (per)chlorate for red/green/white formulas as they burn much faster. Barium/Strontium salts don't do shit for improving burn rate.