Yellow powder

[Chemguy]

well, I made up a new batch, with more precise measurements, and tried 10 grams strait away. The result was a deafining bang ripping a hole through my steel gauze mat ;(. It was 10 times louder than the one I posted earlier, but I wouldn't want to get that close to it. Anyway it was awesome, it was so loud. I see how dangerous it is now and I have more respect for it. Here are some pics of the gauze that it blew through, I wouldn't want that going off anywhere near me let alone in my hand . sorry about the size and quality.

 

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/2464/fulminater001smallyp8.jpg

 

http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/7315/fulminater002smallvb6.jpg

 

http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/7246/fulminater004smallms2.jpg

 

About the products I think it depends on how slowly you heat it. Slow heating would make more polysulfides as it goes dark red, like my Calcium polysufide sort of, and if you do it fast(er) it goes darkish yellow, there will be some polysulfide but not as much.

[Rocket007]

ohhh yelow powder. that is realy some old staff. maybe 1 year ago i make some of them it is realy fast but to sensitive when you make it. the best would be to controle the temperature so that the mxture melt together and at the right time. did somebothy test the powder in a shell or as lift?

 

[DeAdFX]

If you want semi cheap OTC lift powder use golden powder[Potassium nitrate vitamin C] instead. Golden powder is safer, reliable and probably makes a better propellant.

[shadopyro]

Meh, i think willow BP does me fine TBH!

using yellow powder for a nozzeless rocket?- is yellow powder impact sensitive?

[Rocket007]

as i can mind i think it is not, but for a rocket propelant it would be to strong an o hot i think.

[pa_pyro]

using yellow powder for a nozzeless rocket?- is yellow powder impact sensitive?

...meh...read my posts, emphasis on bullet primers.

 

I've been using Na carbonate and it works fine for yellow powder like chemguy said. The reason why smaller amounts work better, is because most of the powder gets a chance to melt instead of just melting the bottom of the pile which explodes sending the rest of the burning powder into the air. To maximize the effect spread the powder out into a thin layer before you heat it. I'm thinking pot. carbonate will work better because it will be more reactive. A rocket made with fully melted powder would explode... My toaster oven slowly heat the powder, and even when it is black it jusy burns quickly. I can't wait till my pot. carb. comes so I can test the real stuff.

[Chemguy]

The only problem with K carbonate is, like somebody has mentioned, is that is is extremely hygroscopic and the water it absorbs is so much that it becomes a puddle, maybe just use it fast and if it does absorb water, a little bit that is, that will make it easier to heat up without catching alight so it will go off when it is more melted which is better.

 

Spreading it out does work WAY better, that's how I blew through that thing, also I don't think it will work in rockets because it explodes and if it isn't molten it burns crappy as. Also the explosion is extremely powerful and the rocket will blow up big.

[pa_pyro]

My carbonate just arrived today. the K carb. performs much better and melts more quickly/evenly than the Na carb. does. When it is held near a naked flame it doesn't burn, but melts and then makes a bang. I have almost dumped the idea of using this as a primary HE because it has to be molten to light, so a fuse wouldn't light it, it wouldn't last that long because of being so hygroscopic, and it's dangrous to make.(although it does seem to detonate even in small quantities.) I tried melting a small amount in a spoon but kind of left out the hearing protection, and was left with ringing ears for awhile. The extension corded toaster oven test is up next... Although I don't see any real uses for this stuff, it is a fun novelty. I might try adding a few parts sucrose to aid in melting, and ignition after it is molten then dried.

[Chemguy]

With the K carb, can you heat over a hot flame? You know if you heat Na carb yellow powder it catches alight if you heat it too fast, can you heat it faster with K carb.

 

And yes, it does have no uses , and it is a fun thing to do with small amounts of chemicals in your spare time.

 

Does anyone know how to make K carb? As you know there are no chemicals companies in NZ, shipping is a fortune from other countries and eBay. So I am going to try make some. I am thinking of using Na carb, or Ca carb and mixing with a potassium salt like K2SO4 or KNO3. I am looking to do it with Ca carb because more Ca products are insoluable.

 

I will try CaCO3 + K2SO4 + C --> K2CO3 + CO2 + K2S

 

Like this website says. Obviously changing Na2SO4 for K2SO4, which I have 3Kg of. Does anyone know how hot I need to get it?

[Doubl3_HeLiX]

I was planning on making some yellow powder just to fool around. Seeing as I dont have any K2CO3, I was planning on using Na2CO3, as chemguy is. I just tried a synthesis of sodium carbonate, and I yeilded 47.3 of Na2CO3 from 100 grams of NaHCO3. I assume this is correct given the following equation:

 

NaHCO3 -> Na2CO3 + H2O + CO2

 

Is this correct? Also, is the final product, using Na2CO3, some what close to the final product when using K2CO3?

[Chemguy]

Yes the decomposition reaction is right. It may seem a bit wonky but just add a 2 before NaHCO3 to balance it.

 

2NaHCO3 --> Na2CO3 + H2O + CO2

 

So you can expect half and the loss of water and CO2. It's right.

 

I imagine th final product shouldn't be diiferent with Na carb and K carb, (apart from Na and K )

 

KNO3 + K2CO3 + S --> K2S + CO2 + KNO2

 

Remember ^^this^^ isn't perfect at all.

 

just change K2S for Na2S. Obviously there will be different reaction rates and therefore slightly different results. K2CO3 will melt faster in the mix according to Pa pyro. therefor giving less time for things to be oxidized before the big reaction, that is with Na carb you could expect more SO2 because small amounts of sulfur will be oxidized before the BIG reaction happens.

[pa_pyro]

Im not actually sure if the K2CO3 powder melts faster, it might have been because of excess water in my Na2CO3. Since my camera is working again I will post a video of some being melted on a single sheet of aluminum foil. And concerning the flame test, if I hold the flame above the powder it still melts and procedes to detonate. if I hold it to close it catches fire and burns like slow smoke mix. For use in detonators(I need to find the real VOD of this before even considering going through the hassle) Maybe a layer of KNO3 smoke mix on top of the premelted powder, which when lit would melt the pre-heated mix, and in turn cause it to detonate. I might give up on this it seems to much of a pain and would be very unreliable. (mods if need be delete this)

 

The vid will be here soon.

 

Edit: here it is 1/10 of a gram

[hst45]

Pa Pyro, good thought. Perhaps this could be used as a rolled-star core to yield a report. A prime of BP or TT would tend to heat the core pretty uniformly I would think. I've not experimented with yellow powder so I'm unfarmiliar with it's sensativity so I don't know if it would take the force of rocket launch or mortar lift though.

[Chemguy]

pa pyro, that's a nice lot you got there. Tommorow I am plannig o do a 15g bang! I will do it outside on a hotplate and I don't intend to be close when it goes off. I will film it and post it but since I am filming from my picture camera the sound is shitty, so you can't appreciate the loudness of it.

 

And I agree, it is too unreliable to do any firework with. I personally just like it for immpressing my friends, who like explosions but not really pyrotechnics. One of my friends liked pyro a little bit a while back, he liked my last batch a bit.

 

My neighbours allready hate me, my party was the day before guyfawkes, two nights of fireworks. And back last year when I liked making eXPl0510nZ, (sorry). So anyway, I will post a vid of it, hopefully I find my video camera .

[h0lx]

I tried it with sodium carbonate today. mixed 6 grams in a mortar+pestle. Never got it dark brown, as it ignited each time, I got it dark yellow tho, and this burns pretty fast. Love the vivid sodium yellow from the carbonate:)

[Chemguy]

The yellow flame is nice isn't it. Maybe to make it work better you should heat it slower. That will make it go dark brown, also try a smaller amount so it can melt better and more even, spreading it out also helps.

 

Looks like I will be doing the fulminating powder outside today as it looks like good weather .

[pa_pyro]

I might try a few grams in a can on a hot plate sometime and get a video.

 

Looks like I will be doing the fulminating powder outside today as it looks like good weather .

 

It has been pooring rain here all day, check the U.S. weather map over PA...

[Chemguy]

I did the fulminating powder, but some blew away so had about 6 grams. So I wet it so it was damp a little bit and mortar and pestled it so it was a finer powder. I put it on the hotplate. It took a while to heat up. And it was so scary... And then it blew, it was very loud! Like a gunshot. Sorry I couldn't get a video, it went off unexpectedly and the camera, because I am using the picture one, wasn't on because it ran out of space .

 

Any way it is finnaly starting to get warm over here, yesterday was 26 degrees (celcius of course ) and today is supposed to be 28 degrees. Now I can start doing more stuff outside, because it's annoying being stuck in the lab/shed.

 

Hotplates are annoying if you want to use them because when you are sitting back away from it you can't tell if it's working or not, and you want to go see if it's on. I didn't go near it, good thing to because the stuff was so powerful it deformed the steel lid, which I can barely bend in my hands, quite badly.Pretty much imagine a flat circle piece of aluminum foil, and push your finger down in the middle of it so it caves in on itself, that's what happened to it a bit.

[Rs23]

Yes it is Na carb decomp. It is easy I think. What I did was get about 20g of NaHCO3 add about 10mls of water so it's a sludge and boil it. Then leave it to dry. Then I baked it over a flame a bit mored to get rid of anymore water.

 

And I managed to film it. It is shitty quality because I used my photo camera film which sucks for quality, and makes huge files, so I recorded it on quick screen recorder, making that file size 20 times smaller. The sound in real life was about 6 times louder. In other words a lot. Here is the file. It is about 2 grams.

 

Yes, the state of my lab is embarrassing http://www.amateurpyro.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/#EMO_DIR#/2sad.gif

 

EDIT: It seems that the download is hard to work. So right click it and save as. Save it as fulminate.avi. It works fine like that. http://www.amateurpyro.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/#EMO_DIR#/biggrin2.gif

 

I made an account and the site still says I do not have permission to view attachment?

[Mike]

You need 1 post before you get acces, by now you should have them

[taiwanluthiers]

I am curious about this yellow powder thing. I googled "fulminating powder" and all I can find on wikipedia (for what it's worth) is an article about percussion caps and it used mercury fulminate and a few other chems. Are there any quality literature on this and how/why it works?

 

It seems weird that potassium nitrate/potassium carbonate/sulfur can form a sensitive explosive, especially when these aren't really chemicals that are thought of as incompatible.

[schroedinger]

The pottasium carbonate reacts with the sulfur tk form pot. Polysulfides and thiosulfate. The polysulfides react with the nitrate to form more thisulfate and nitrite.mnitrit are far stronger oxidiser then nitrates and thiosulfate is a real strong reducing agent. This behavior is drastically increased on high temperatures, where the nitrite suddenly (if a high enough temperatur is reached) starts to oxidise the thiosulfate to sulfate.

 

If you prepare this powder, wrap it inside al foil. The reason is, that you need to make sure no sulvur evaporates or burns away. For big samples you need to use quite a god burner, for samples up zo 5g a candle is sufficient.

Also be aware of the fact that this stuff detonates, so be away far enough and yes it really bangs a lot. Also there is a way to prepare it, by first melting sulfur and carbonate together, but i would need to look that upl

[Mumbles]

Are you seriously advocating making this with an open flame?

[schroedinger]

Mumbles this powder just get detonated using an open flame. Of course nothing flammable is to be kept nearby but samples up to 5g just extingtush a candle.

We did this stuff in scool with a 10g batch. (But ghis big samples are way to big and the report isn't inreally increasing by using bigger samples bug stuff flying around) Using a lab tripod with a wire mesh/ceramic and a bunsen burner (you need that much heating power). It really banged but didn't even extingtush the burner or damage the wire mesh. (Where of i would be sure that a stiff plate would be seriusly damaged)

If you use a candle it takes about 1 min before it detonates, on half gram samples about 30 seconds.

 

Did you ever make this powder?

 

Here you can see two samples of about 1g set of at a chemistry class.

http://m.youtube.com/results?q=yellow%20powder&sm=3

Edited June 2, 2014 by schroedinger

[Mumbles]

I have in fact made this powder. Have you ever actually read any real literature about this mixture? Davis covers this on pages 30-32 of COPAE, as well as Chymia II, and includes the safe(er) industrial preparation of it. There are also the direct accounts from Samuel Guthrie Jr., who was the individual who unsuccessfully manufactured this industrially in the early to mid 19th century for firearms. He, by his own account, had over 100 explosions despite generally knowing what he was doing, and having plenty of safety improvements.

 

I'll give you the highlights. #1 no open flames! He stated on more than one occasion that he used a muffle furnace, which isolates the flame from the heating chamber. This is going to be more robust than tin foil or a wire mesh with asbestos or clay inserts. #2 He pre-melted two of the components together, cooled it, and powdered it before introducing the third.

 

In any case, it's more of an academic curiosity. No one here is capable of making useful quantities of it, and it's generally so hygroscopic to be totally useless in a short period of time. This is besides the unnecessary sensitivity of it.