Coloured Flames

I have found some lists of chemicals which will burn different colours if disolved into meths or pure ethanol, but I cannot find anywhere to get them from - I have tried pharmacies/chemists and they don't know of anywhere that will sell them.

The chemicals I am specifically after are
Boric Acid, Copper Chloride, Lithium Chloride, and Indium
- the last two are apparently a lot harder to get hold of but if anyone could give me ideas on where to look that would be great.

happy spinning

Wolfie

Boric acid

that's a start...

Boric acid shoud be avaliable at pharmacies, have a look in several, look specificaly in the area where they keep things like acetone, methylated spirits and things like that.

Copper chloride is evidently used in lusters for pottery, should be possible to get from some pottery supply stores, from what i can tell, it produces a similar colour to boric acid but is more toxic.

Lithium chloride is a prescription medicine (antidepressant) and hard to obtain, it should be easier to get lithium sulphate, but it might not dissolve.
One solution would be to get lithium carbonate from a pottery supply store and hydrochloric acid (which I have been unable to obtain and is highly corrosive, very dilute hrdrochloric acid like the dilute stuff at schools should be safer) and mix the two to get lithium chloride (lots of fizz, probably more vigorous than baking soda and vinegar) which would need to be dried.

Strontium produces a similar colour and strontium chloride shoud be easier to obtain or be possible to make in the same way using strontium carbonate from pottery supply stores.

Indium compounds are very expensive (from memory, $100 per gram), would probably have to be shipped in from overseas and appear to be worryingly toxic.

One thing you definatley want to avoid is sodium impurities, sodium will make the flame yellow and blot out the other interesting colours.

Methylated sprits is the fuel you should use, the methanol (methyl alcohol, poisionous) in it is required for the boric acid ( boric acid + methanol = methyl borate) to work and the other things should dissolve well in it.

[ 02. August 2003, 22:10: Message edited by: Tangaroa ]

Nice one that helps a lot - I'll soon be on my way to dazzling multi coloured fire shows. I hope the effects are impressive!

Wolfie

2 possibilities come to mind when getting chemicals...

1) become a chemistry teacher, working your way up throught he ranks to become head of physics...then you can have and make whatever chemical compounds you need!

2) steal it.

Yo.... chemicals.... There is a lot about them. Search on the internet for the MSDS records on them. Copper chloride is really not good shit for you . Why I use gas mask.

Rememeber any chemicals you use its best to use an alcohol based flamable to dilute it. Methenol. if you use Kero it aint gonna work. Remember that the alcohol based flamable is very thin and does not stay inside the wick like kero and oil base flamable. Expect a lot of spray and possible flamming spit.

Paraffin is a mixture of solid hydrocarbons and Kerosine is a different mixture of liquid hydrocarbons... which can have a wide range of ingredients. So lots of different mixtures could be considered Kero as long as they have the same general mixture. Kinda like tomato soup, you and I could make it with slightly different ingredients and it'd still be tomato soup.

Ive been in communication with a dude recently and this is the info I pasted from his email.

------------------------------
I've done this a few times for firework shows using various chemicals dissolved in alcohol, the colours aren't particularly bright but they are distinguishable.
Green: Boric Acid
Red: Lithium Chloride
Lilac: Potassium Chloride
Blue: Copper Chloride
Most of these chems you can get cheaply from a pottery supply store, they use them for making glazes. The lithium and copper are available as carbonates so to make it into the chloride you simply dissolve in hydrochloric acid and evaporate to get the crystals.
Well the stuff at the pottery stores goes for ~5$ per pound, though the purity may not be so good. There's a place in richmond called "the Mad Potter" that carries chems and another one on the way to abbotsford called Greenbarn. I'm planning on getting some for a party this friday so if you want to pool together for something that'd be cool.
Hey, those are some nice effects!

I went to the mad potter yesterday to check it out and picked up some
stuff too, including 10lbs of boric acid, 1/2lb of Copper Carbonate,
and
1 lb of lithium carbonate. The prices for chems of interest were as
follows:

1/2lb 1lb 5lb
Boric Acid 3.25 9.25
Copper Carb 5.25 9.95 39.95
Lithium Carb 4.50 7.95 36.00
Potassium Carb 2.95 4.95 12.50
Strontium Carb 2.95 4.95 19.95
Barium Carb - 3.95 12.00

They also had copper oxides and sulfate for somewhat cheaper but those
don't react well with hydrochloric acid. The strontium and barium are
what make red and green in normal fireworks but to dissolve them in
alcohol you need to make more exotic salts than the chloride. Potassium
carbonate can be reacted with vinegar which converts it to potassium
acetate, and that gives a purple-bluish flame.

How much quantity were you interested in? I'll happily share half the
boric acid I got for 10$. It's cheap and makes a really pure green. The
lithium and copper I still need to convert to the chloride and see how
that works.

Methanol is 8$ a gallon at home depot, you can get that anywhere.
Yeah, more than a lifetime supply for me. The ratio is a couple
tablespoons per litre methanol. I just finished making small test
batches of lithium and copper chlorides too, got the HCl from Home
Hardware (5$ per litre). It's hard to judge in the daytime but the
lithium seemed to give a very nice pinkish red while the copper was a
pale green (I was hoping it'd be more blue). I'll send some pictures of
it tonight.

I'm gonna make all the lithium into LiCl, and if you want some of that
too I'll sell half of it at cost (4.55$ for 1/2lb of Li2CO3 + 2$ worth
of acid = 6.55$). As for the copper it depends how it looks in the
dark.
So tests are over, results are in, and here's the verdict on copper
(II)
chloride in methanol. It seems to burn initially with a mostly green
flame that is blue only around the base, otherwise almost the same
colour as boric acid. After a while though when the fuel starts to dry
up it transforms into a rich pure blue hue. My pyro experience tells me
that the green results from not enough chlorine in the flame, so I may
try adding ammonium chloride or such to the mix when I get a chance.

Other observations: the boric acid burned away with practically no
residue, the lithium chloride left a small amound of white crust
behind,
while the copper produced quantities of volcanic brown ash.

If this looks good here's what I can give to Maren:
5lbs of Boric Acid 10$
1/2lb of LiCl in solution 6.50$
1/8lb of CuCl2 in solution 3$

You never know crossing the border these days, but the chemicals are
neither regulated nor dangerous so shouldn't cause a problem.

Paraffin is a mixture of solid hydrocarbons and Kerosine is a different mixture of liquid hydrocarbons... which can have a wide range of ingredients. So lots of different mixtures could be considered Kero as long as they have the same general mixture. Kinda like tomato soup, you and I could make it with slightly different ingredients and it'd still be tomato soup.

Since hydrocarbons are made by distilling crude oil it's really just a series of hydrocarbons that evaporate at aproximately the same temperature.
------------------------------

These are some pictures he hooked me up with.

http://www.premonut.ca/3flamesjustlit.jpg
http://www.premonut.ca/3flamestimeexposure.jpg
http://www.premonut.ca/3flamesend.jpg

Hope this can help you. Basically I choose to use the collored flames as a decorative element in my fire show. Get a few old metal pots put the mixture in and make it part of your show.

Peace ,

Benoit (P-Nut)

heheheee.... there is some comfort in knowing that some things just don't change....

You can get loads of boric acid cheap from siversmiths, we use it to clean the silver an its dirt cheap like £4 for a kilo. Unfortunately lithium chloride and copper chloride are classed as poisons, so even tho I work in a lab I canna get them as there locked up in asafe

I just made up a bit of methylated spirits with boric acid. Very pretty flame, but the fumes are quite nasty.
Does anyone have information about the specific dangers of inhaling vapor from methylated spirits, or smoke from burning spirits? I just read an MSDS for the stuff, and it sounds awful. Of course, huffing fumes from white gas or paraffin isn't exactly healthy either.
Also, for if/when I perform with these chemicals, does anyone know of a small respirator which might be easily concealed beneath a scarf or something over the face? Seems unlikely but maybe worth a try.

ive made a set of 2lb weighted tennis ball poi for endurance training. they are really fun and you can really build speed, strength, and endurance with them. they are definetly not for wraps!

try potassium permanganet it makes the flame purpule and u can get from camping shops becouse if u dont have matches u mix potassium permangat and it catches fire also its a water purafier