Fungi eating my BP

[mabuse00]

I've got a serious problem with my BP and charcoal stars like TT, C8 ect. see attached photo.

 

The stars and also my riced rocket BP where absolutely dry when I put them away, I used glasses with very good seals.

 

Anyway, now I have to burn the stuff quickly.

 

 

These fungi only seem to eat BP like compositions. (Per-)Chlorate stars where left untouched, also D1.

 

 

 

Do you have experience with this phenomenon?

And maybe some idea how to prevent it?

[Sabdacrab]

That my friend, is absolutely intriguing! I have one idea, but this may just be a longshot: It might have something to do with the starch (dextrin) decomposing, like any other normal item or foodstuff. This is just a GUESS though!

Also, how long ago were these comps made and in what conditions have they been stored within?

Thanks, Seb.

[Potassiumchlorate]

Two reasons why they eat BP but not KP:

 

1. Fungi need nitrates as nutrition.

 

2. Potassium perchlorate is poisonous to all organisms.

[Sabdacrab]

Two reasons why they eat BP but not KP:

 

1. Fungi need nitrates as nutrition.

 

2. Potassium perchlorate is poisonous to all organisms.

 

Makes sense (more than mine)!

[oldguy]

 

The stars and also my riced rocket BP where absolutely dry when I put them away, I used glasses with very good seals.

 

Do you have experience with this phenomenon?

And maybe some idea how to prevent it?

 

 

I doubt your riced BP & stars were perfectly dry when stored away.

Mold, lichen & fungi spores require three things to geminate, grow & proliferate, I. E, nutrients, moisture & certain ranges of temperature, depending on the type of spore.

 

 

[dagabu]

Interesting, I too had some stars go "bad" on me last year and some wet comp go moldy on me this spring. The chemist where I work told me it was because of the organics... I guess that means that both the pot nit and dex add to the yuck.

 

-dag

[oldguy]

Few people realize that a cubic foot of average normal unfiltered household “air” usually contains about 100,000 invisible (to the naked eye) particulates. A great many of which are all sorts of “spores” that can & will germinate if/when they come in contact with the a certain range of environmental circumstances (right temperature, moisture & some sort of nutrient).

 

Many sorts of spores actually prefer stagnant air (where all ventilation is lacking) to geminate in. A tightly sealed container is often ideal, if it contains some viable spores, a certain amount of moisture, some sort of nutrients & the temperature it is stored in isn’t to hot or cold.

 

Some things store far better if the container has an ambient gas exchange filter on the lid. Which allows the inside of the container to reach an equilibrium with the outside atmosphere. Tyvek (used in housing construction) makes an excellent inexpensive ambient gas exchange filter on container lids

 

 

[AdmiralDonSnider]

Once had a similar problem with nitrate based round stars, which obviously were not completely dried when I put them in ziploc bags for storage.

[mabuse00]

I doubt your riced BP & stars were perfectly dry when stored away.

OK, maybe your right. I dried the C8 open on tray under "normal" room conditions (don't have a hygrometer)for 2 weeks. But it was winter and the air was very dry.

The riced BP dried maybe 2 days.

 

Next time I'll swich to hotter fuel and rice with oil & paint thinner, but that's no solution for charcoal stars. There are Tupperboxes that have some small airholes, and some others with a special membrane for breathing, so the smell of cheese wont flood your refrigerator - maybe that's the solution.

 

Anyway, I'll let these little b!stards burn in hell, you can count on that

[spitfire]

Familiar with this problem. It happened to some (fake) compositions i had for display in a glass cabin in my garage. There are no other pyrotechnics there it is just a small pyro/chemistry museum, most of it's items are dummy's, or innocent chems. Visitors don't see the difference anyway. Some C based stars where real, they also caught some sort of fungus. Just as some priming on empty bombettes. Must have something to do with the presence of C, dextrin, moisture, and KNO₃

[dbryceman]

Mold growing on BP is certainly new to me. I generally have no moisture issues with any of my materials or compositions currently, but I really only make BP, rubber stars, and BP based stars currently. My strategy is this: I have a vast collection of zip-loc type plastic containers with screw-on lids. They seem to be air-tight and I like them because they hold about a pound of most chemicals with some extra space. I usually place a poly bag in the container, fill it with a chemical or composition, and twist-tie it closed. Using the extra head room in the container, I toss a homemade silica gel packet in there to make sure everything stays dry, and it is also convenient to keep a folded copy of my MSDS in there.

 

When I first started milling BP, I was having issues with clumping of the BP after 8 hours of milling, and I really like to mill it for 12 hours because it gives me results equivalent to commercial powders or even slightly better. I wasn't really sure which chemical was the problem child - it may have been all of them. My first solution was to dry my KNO3 in an electric oven for several hours and repackage it, but I began to suspect that my charcoal could be a problem as well. How to dry charcoal? Sulfur? Hmm.

 

So I bought several pounds of these color-changing silica gel crystals that are used to dry flowers. In my area they are available at florist supply shops and art supply stores. I just make packets out of folded coffee filters and tape them shut. I throw them in my storage containers between the chemical bag and the wall of the container. It seems to work great. Since charcoal has so much volume for its weight, I use a gallon sized container for it, but I have a thick standing plastic bag in the container that is always open, and about a cup of silica gel in a packet beside the bag. I go through this primarily to ensure that the silica gel does not contaminate the chemicals I am storing.

 

While this is a DIY way to keep chemicals and compositions dry (I live in a humid area) it does take a little time to keep up with the silica gel, since it needs to be dried once in a while to remove the water it has absorbed. For me it has been most beneficial in preventing fine powders from clumping while in storage. For example, my KClO4 cakes into a brick in its plastic bag that it was shipped in, but once I break it up and store it in a drying container, it remains very dry and does not continue to clump together. This allows me to buy chemicals free of anti-caking agents, which are usually cheaper, and I can work with confidence that I do not have any excess moisture in my raw materials. I have not actually measured moisture gain and loss on my chemicals, but I suspect that in some cases moisture gain could be sufficient to cause formulation problems if it throws your weights off by a few percent.

 

I believe this method of using 'drying containers' may prevent fungi from surviving on your compositions if you are having a problem with mold.

 

Materials I use:

 

Zip-Loc Twist n Lock polypropylene containers are available at most grocers and discount stores. There are many brands out there. I prefer these because of the screw-on lids. Snap-on lids can pop off if you accidentally drop a container or turn one over.

 

Poly bags in various sizes and styles can be purchased from numerous online shipping supply companies and may also be found in grocery stores and discount stores.

 

To get twist-ties, I just save the extras from my trash bags I buy. You can also buy rolls of them from shipping supply companies.

 

Silica Gel comes in many shapes, sizes, and packages. I have seen it at many hardware stores, but by far the most useful silica gel I have found was in florist supply shops and hobby shops. It has color indicators in the crystals so that you can see when they are absorbing water, and when they need to be dried for reuse. I don't mind paying a few dollars extra for this benefit.

 

Coffee Filters: I have been using the same package of coffee filters for 25 years. I think I started with 400 or so. I don't drink coffee, but I have found a million reasons to keep coffee filters handy. I use these to make silica gel packets because they are so permeable to air. The only problem is that I cannot see the color indicator in the crystals through the filter paper. I have considered buying glassine envelopes from a stamp collector's shop, since they are relatively clear and will allow me to see when the packets need to be refreshed.

 

This is probably completely non-informative to most folks here, but hopefully someone benefits from it in some way. Stay safe!