color additives

[stormyweathers]

i recently read about chloride salts being used to change flame colors when in solution with methanol.

i was curious to see if these chemicals could be used in shells as color additives too.

 

Red: Lithium chloride (actually any soluble lithium salt)/strontium chloride

Orange: Calcium chloride/ sodium chloride [iodized]

Yellow: Sodium chloride [non-iodized]/barium chloride

Green: Boric acid

Violet: Potassium iodide

blue/green: Cupric Chloride

 

 

i know that some carbonates [strontium and copper] are used, but will the chlorides work too?

 

 

edit: on another note, i live in south FL, so i am unable to find any ice-melt [cheap source of CaCl2]. So if anybody up north has some and would be willing to sell me a pound or so, it would be greatly appreciated.

Edited July 5, 2009 by stormyweathers

[Mumbles]

Most of those won't work all that well. Many are quite hygroscopic, while others rely on the alcohol itself to produce the color (boric acid). In general the price, as well as the less than desirable properties, make the chlorides relatively useless.

 

I've seen some esoteric formulas using Cuprous chloride (CuCl), but thats the only even semi-legitimate use I've seen.

 

Potassium salts have too weak of colors to be used with anything but almost invisible flames such as methanol.

 

CaCl2 can be found as "Damp-rid", a dessicant type thing sold for dehumidifying small spaces.

[firetech]

If you look around the compositions section or even search comps on google you'll come up with some decent colors, and they color additives are usually the same or similiar. Most comps use different salts from the following elements.

 

Red-Strontium

Green-Barium

Blue-Copper

Yellow-Sodium

Orange-Calcium

Purple-Sr/Cu combo (usually)

 

There are various salts that produce colors when burned, but rarely are they in a usable form for pyrotechnics. Usually because of their reactivity with other chems in the formula or because they are hygroscopic.

[stormyweathers]

thanks for the feedback, now i just need to find a way to justify spending some cash on these chems for a relatively useless demo.