Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Chemistry => Topic started by: SorryDnoodle on 11/06/2013 08:36:24
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Hello, I was "playing" around in the garage and I had some leftover chemicals from other reactions and I was thinking if I could make my own flash powder without any help.
I knew the basic ingredients and I conjured up Magnesium, Potassium nitrate and sulfur all mixed.
Makes hell of a bang but not a lot of force behind it with small amounts (1-5 grams), at least so it seems
But lets get to the point, what do you guys think is the most effective ratios?
I wanna do some tests to find it out but I have to little money and to little time, I appreciate any input you guys might have!
Also: This mixture seems to be quite stable, tried to set it off with brute force but to no avail, anvil + hammer, left in aluminum foil out in the sun, a normal lighter can barely light it.
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Sorry, SorryD, but if you do not have the chemical knowledge/net savvy to find this out for yourself, everyone here is likely to say that this is an experiment that you should not be trying.
You should be equipping yourself with a pyrotechnics certificate (and licence) and/or a diploma in applied chemistry.
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Sorry, SorryD, but if you do not have the chemical knowledge/net savvy to find this out for yourself, everyone here is likely to say that this is an experiment that you should not be trying.
You should be equipping yourself with a pyrotechnics certificate (and licence) and/or a diploma in applied chemistry.
I will actually be going a pyrtechnics course in about a year, I would do earlier but it's pretty expensive, and Chemistry is my focus in school, but still, you are probably correct, but a little help would't hurt, have to learn sometime right?
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Flash powder is often made with a highly divided metal such as aluminum, magnesium, titanium, or alloys thereof, mixed with a very strong oxidizer like potassium chlorate or perchlorate.
You should NOT try making this stuff unless you know what you are doing. Even very small quantities of the mixtures can potentially hurt you badly if you don't take the right precautions (without good eye protection a few dozen milligrams could easily take an eye out, and a dozen grams could kill you if detonated too close.) Even if you do everything right, be prepared for the unexpected, it is not stable and can auto-detonate. You need special equipment to even mix the stuff together with risking an explosion.
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As for any reaction, just write down the reaction equation, then multiply the proportions by the atomic/molecular weights of the reagents. That will give you the theoretical optimum chemical ratio. Now consider what losses may occur as the reaction proceeds in a particular physical structure - you will probably decide to add a bit more oxidant to ensure complete combustion of the metal, but to make a persistent visible flame (the point of flash powder rather than an explosive) you might use less oxidant and rely on a third element (like suphur) burning in air to maintain the aluminium or magnesium flame as the charge disperses.
However the rate of any solid reaction depends on the surface/volume ratio of the constituents, and serious technological cunning is required. To get a good flash, you need to mill the components together without heating them, and possibly to coat the metal particles with your slow-burn (sulphur) component. That is the trade secret you should learn on your pyrotechnics course - patience will be rewarded!
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Flash powder is often made with a highly divided metal such as aluminum, magnesium, titanium, or alloys thereof, mixed with a very strong oxidizer like potassium chlorate or perchlorate.
You should NOT try making this stuff unless you know what you are doing. Even very small quantities of the mixtures can potentially hurt you badly if you don't take the right precautions (without good eye protection a few dozen milligrams could easily take an eye out, and a dozen grams could kill you if detonated too close.) Even if you do everything right, be prepared for the unexpected, it is not stable and can auto-detonate. You need special equipment to even mix the stuff together with risking an explosion.
I know the basics, oxide, fuel, lowering & speeding.
And I also know the risks, thus I have done several tests on this particular powder, more than I care to count, but I assure you it does not make it any less nerve wracking when doing it, nor does it make me any less careful.
I am only using non-static/spark generating materials and I mix it slowly, you know, those obvious things we all learn.
I hate being arrogant, but I know what I am doing on this level, I just don't know the theoretical ultimatum of ratios, well I do now but that's not the point.
I understand pyrotechnics and I am just starting chemistry which will obviously aid my understanding of such things as well, and no, I am not 15 years old, we just start chem very late, very.
But I thank you for being worried, I suppose you should't just handout recipes over the internet for explosives.
As for any reaction, just write down the reaction equation, then multiply the proportions by the atomic/molecular weights of the reagents. That will give you the theoretical optimum chemical ratio. Now consider what losses may occur as the reaction proceeds in a particular physical structure - you will probably decide to add a bit more oxidant to ensure complete combustion of the metal, but to make a persistent visible flame (the point of flash powder rather than an explosive) you might use less oxidant and rely on a third element (like suphur) burning in air to maintain the aluminium or magnesium flame as the charge disperses.
However the rate of any solid reaction depends on the surface/volume ratio of the constituents, and serious technological cunning is required. To get a good flash, you need to mill the components together without heating them, and possibly to coat the metal particles with your slow-burn (sulphur) component. That is the trade secret you should learn on your pyrotechnics course - patience will be rewarded!
A comment that states facts rather than security!
Thanks for the reply, tired of endless replies saying, no, don't do it, might be dangerous, well of course it is! but so is my drain cleaner.
Really looking forward to the course, but for now I am relying on you lads!
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Sorry SorryDnoodle,
Unfortunately your own credentials are irrelevant in this context. Bear in mind that any answers presented in this forum are available to all who have unfettered internet access. Our concern is not just for your fingers and eyes and ears.
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Sorry SorryDnoodle,
Unfortunately your own credentials are irrelevant in this context. Bear in mind that any answers presented in this forum are available to all who have unfettered internet access. Our concern is not just for your fingers and eyes and ears.
I suppose that would be true unless the internet was full of information about explosives and flash powders, my question is one of improvement of an already existing "recipe" which I am sure that I am not the first to use.
But I do understand your concern and I agree with you on some fundamental level.
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Flash powder is often made with a highly divided metal such as aluminum, magnesium, titanium, or alloys thereof, mixed with a very strong oxidizer like potassium chlorate or perchlorate.
You should NOT try making this stuff unless you know what you are doing. Even very small quantities of the mixtures can potentially hurt you badly if you don't take the right precautions (without good eye protection a few dozen milligrams could easily take an eye out, and a dozen grams could kill you if detonated too close.) Even if you do everything right, be prepared for the unexpected, it is not stable and can auto-detonate. You need special equipment to even mix the stuff together with risking an explosion.
I know the basics, oxide, fuel, lowering & speeding.
And I also know the risks, thus I have done several tests on this particular powder, more than I care to count, but I assure you it does not make it any less nerve wracking when doing it, nor does it make me any less careful.
I am only using non-static/spark generating materials and I mix it slowly, you know, those obvious things we all learn.
I hate being arrogant, but I know what I am doing on this level, I just don't know the theoretical ultimatum of ratios, well I do now but that's not the point.
I understand pyrotechnics and I am just starting chemistry which will obviously aid my understanding of such things as well, and no, I am not 15 years old, we just start chem very late, very.
But I thank you for being worried, I suppose you should't just handout recipes over the internet for explosives.
As for any reaction, just write down the reaction equation, then multiply the proportions by the atomic/molecular weights of the reagents. That will give you the theoretical optimum chemical ratio. Now consider what losses may occur as the reaction proceeds in a particular physical structure - you will probably decide to add a bit more oxidant to ensure complete combustion of the metal, but to make a persistent visible flame (the point of flash powder rather than an explosive) you might use less oxidant and rely on a third element (like suphur) burning in air to maintain the aluminium or magnesium flame as the charge disperses.
However the rate of any solid reaction depends on the surface/volume ratio of the constituents, and serious technological cunning is required. To get a good flash, you need to mill the components together without heating them, and possibly to coat the metal particles with your slow-burn (sulphur) component. That is the trade secret you should learn on your pyrotechnics course - patience will be rewarded!
A comment that states facts rather than security!
Thanks for the reply, tired of endless replies saying, no, don't do it, might be dangerous, well of course it is! but so is my drain cleaner.
Really looking forward to the course, but for now I am relying on you lads!
Can you remind me again what a "theoretical ultimatum of ratios" is?
I'm a little out of the chemistry scene, but I don't recall this from my grad school days in chemistry.
Thanks
Nitrous
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Can you remind me again what a "theoretical ultimatum of ratios" is?
I'm a little out of the chemistry scene, but I don't recall this from my grad school days in chemistry.
Thanks
Nitrous
I believe it is the theoretical amounts required for a reaction to take place where no element is in abundance.
But in reality if you had the exact amounts for something to completely react everything would react because of things such as heat distribution and because this particular mix isn't able to mixed properly, more sulfur will lay in one place while more magnesium in another.
I think.
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The stoichiometric quantities for a reaction.
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The stoichiometric quantities for a reaction.
In theory, the maximum energy density (J/g) would be achieved using the stoichiometric ratio, but only if all of the material were able to react before the reaction blew the material all away. In reality, this is actually a very complicated question that is likely best answered by experimentation (actually probably best left alone). There are so many parameters beyond reactant ratio; like size and shape of the reactant particles, shape and size of the whole mixture, initial temperature, placement of the point(s) of ignition, final pressure allowed before bursting, whether there are any other additives (one might be surprised by the random stuff that makes it into pyrotechnic recipes) and how well the ingredients are mixed, etc...
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Well I find it hard to say this without sounding to harsh or condescending, so I´ll have to apologize in advance, but I must say that this thread is quite upsetting. Some of the most dangerous advices I´ve seen and no one objects despite the fact that this has been seen more than 6700 times!
IF anyone atempts anything like this:
1. If you mill flash power you might as well write a suicide note first. You NEVER mill anything like that!
(the ingredients in black power are ball millied together, and that is done with balls made from an lead/antimony alloy since pure lead is too soft, and the ball mill must be turned on and of from a safe distance. Maybe that is the cause of the confusion)
2. Remove the sulphur.
You are thinking of sulphur as a fuel, but with magnesium it acts as an oxidizer.
Mg and S in themselves become a very sensitive flash power. It is used for special appications where you need a lot of heat but little gas.
Generally sulphur is both unnecessary and makes a flashpowers more sensitive.
It may also be slightly acidic depending on how it is manufactured, and magnesium and low pH-value is a very bad mix..
The exception is nitrate/Al based flash. In that case sulphur may be necessary, but I don´t like that combo becasue it needs 1-2% boric acid as a stabilizer. Otherwise there is a risk of spontaneous igintion.
(I generally don´t like compositions that need stabilizers. If it is not perfectly mixed there will be parts of the mixture that lacks, or have to little of the stabilizer and then the whole thing may go boom anyway. )
3. Avoid chlorates. With very few exceptions chlorate mixtures are very sensitive to friction or acidic environments. Sulphur and sulphur compounds are among the worst. (Not to speak of red phosphorus. I would litterally run for my life if anyone tried to mix xxClO3/P dry. I think I´ve even heard of ignitions in wet conditions.)
perchlorates are far safer, but you must of course pretend that it is a chlorate and treat it accordingly. Otherwise you remove the safety margin you created by choosing perchlorate over chlorate in the first place.
4. Never use pure magnesium with chlorate/perchlorate. It is far too reactive even if it has been treated with parrafin.
As you can see, this is quite confusing. Some oxidizers are pH-sensitive, others are not as sensitive. Some metals are sensitive to low pH, others to high pH and magnesium has even problems with pure water because water is an auto protolyte.
Some fuels can serve as oxidizers with a powerful reducing agents
If you make your own "dark aluminium" you may be too succesfull so it becomes pyrophoric
The list goes on...
What I´m trying to show here is:
It is very, very easy to confuse things and make mixtures more danerous when you intentions was making it safe. You may mix all fuels seperately before adding the oxidizer, thinking you are being smart, but then you had forgotten for example how violently Mg/S or Zn/S can react and the substances you thought of as fuels explodes in your face.
A personal story about something going very wrong, and I still don´t know why:
When I was fifteen I caused a fire in my parents basement when drying chlorate containing red "stars". They contained some sulphur, but since I had tested the mixture by hitting it with a hammer, I thought it to be "safe" (Dumb conclusion)
I´m still not absolutely sure what happened.
1. I used Gum arrabic as a binder. A water solution of that can turn acidic due to bacterialgrowth. One possible factor.
2. The suphur may not have been neutral, but in this case that seems unlikely.
I don´t think I used any Mg. Otherwise it could have been the combo Mg/S/H20/baceria
Probably some weird combination.
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Edit: To clarify: The ignited spontaneously when drying. There was a little heat a light 60 watt bulb. Normally you shouldn't dry a star like that, but I was fifteen and in a hurry ..and it wasn't that hot. Anyway, later I was able to reproduce exacly the same reaction with even longer distance to that lamp. I heard some sound from a star and took it down. When I looked closer I saw that ther surface had cracked and looked almost like it was melting and there was a little smoke coming from it. A second or so after that it ignited.
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I love fireworks and am very happy to see more people become interrested, but please don´t start without proper knowledge!
PS
Forgive me my bad english. English is not my native tongue
DS
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Well I find it hard to say this without sounding to harsh or condescending, so I´ll have to apologize in advance, but I must say that this thread is quite upsetting. Some of the most dangerous advices I´ve seen and no one objects despite the fact that this has been seen more than 6700 times!
IF anyone atempts anything like this:
1. If you mill flash power you might as well write a suicide note first. You NEVER mill anything like that!
(the ingredients in black power are ball millied together, and that is done with balls made from an lead/antimony alloy since pure lead is too soft, and the ball mill must be turned on and of from a safe distance. Maybe that is the cause of the confusion)
2. Remove the sulphur.
You are thinking of sulphur as a fuel, but with magnesium it acts as an oxidizer.
Mg and S in themselves become a very sensitive flash power. It is used for special appications where you need a lot of heat but little gas.
Generally sulphur is both unnecessary and makes a flashpowers more sensitive.
It may also be slightly acidic depending on how it is manufactured, and magnesium and low pH-value is a very bad mix..
The exception is nitrate/Al based flash. In that case sulphur may be necessary, but I don´t like that combo becasue it needs 1-2% boric acid as a stabilizer. Otherwise there is a risk of spontaneous igintion.
(I generally don´t like compositions that need stabilizers. If it is not perfectly mixed there will be parts of the mixture that lacks, or have to little of the stabilizer and then the whole thing may go boom anyway. )
3. Avoid chlorates. With very few exceptions chlorate mixtures are very sensitive to friction or acidic environments. Sulphur and sulphur compounds are among the worst. (Not to speak of red phosphorus. I would litterally run for my life if anyone tried to mix xxClO3/P dry. I think I´ve even heard of ignitions in wet conditions.)
perchlorates are far safer, but you must of course pretend that it is a chlorate and treat it accordingly. Otherwise you remove the safety margin you created by choosing perchlorate over chlorate in the first place.
4. Never use pure magnesium with chlorate/perchlorate. It is far too reactive even if it has been treated with parrafin.
As you can see, this is quite confusing. Some oxidizers are pH-sensitive, others are not as sensitive. Some metals are sensitive to low pH, others to high pH and magnesium has even problems with pure water because water is an auto protolyte.
Some fuels can serve as oxidizers with a powerful reducing agents
If you make your own "dark aluminium" you may be too succesfull so it becomes pyrophoric
The list goes on...
What I´m trying to show here is:
It is very, very easy to confuse things and make mixtures more danerous when you intentions was making it safe. You may mix all fuels seperately before adding the oxidizer, thinking you are being smart, but then you had forgotten for example how violently Mg/S or Zn/S can react and the substances you thought of as fuels explodes in your face.
A personal story about something going very wrong, and I still don´t know why:
When I was fifteen I caused a fire in my parents basement when drying chlorate containing red "stars". They contained some sulphur, but since I had tested the mixture by hitting it with a hammer, I thought it to be "safe" (Dumb conclusion)
I´m still not absolutely sure what happened.
1. I used Gum arrabic as a binder. A water solution of that can turn acidic due to bacterialgrowth. One possible factor.
2. The suphur may not have been neutral, but in this case that seems unlikely.
I don´t think I used any Mg. Otherwise it could have been the combo Mg/S/H20/baceria
Probably some weird combination.
---------------------------------------------
Edit: To clarify: The ignited spontaneously when drying. There was a little heat a light 60 watt bulb. Normally you shouldn't dry a star like that, but I was fifteen and in a hurry ..and it wasn't that hot. Anyway, later I was able to reproduce exacly the same reaction with even longer distance to that lamp. I heard some sound from a star and took it down. When I looked closer I saw that ther surface had cracked and looked almost like it was melting and there was a little smoke coming from it. A second or so after that it ignited.
-----------------------------------------------
I love fireworks and am very happy to see more people become interrested, but please don´t start without proper knowledge!
PS
Forgive me my bad english. English is not my native tongue
DS
AMEN!
(and welcome ewh)
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Well I find it hard to say this without sounding to harsh or condescending, so I´ll have to apologize in advance, but I must say that this thread is quite upsetting. Some of the most dangerous advices I´ve seen and no one objects despite the fact that this has been seen more than 6700 times!
2. Remove the sulphur.
You are thinking of sulphur as a fuel, but with magnesium it acts as an oxidizer.
Mg and S in themselves become a very sensitive flash power. It is used for special appications where you need a lot of heat but little gas.
From extensive testing, mostly focused around stability and safety ( I like my face) I have not seen any apparent issues with my mix, S, Mg and KNO3, hitting with hard objects, heating, high moisture levels + already mentioned, etc..
So far everything has worked just fine , never combusted when struck and my hotplate needed to heat it above sulfurs melting point for it to ignite ( over 100 C*) which is not a temperature normally reached under any circumstances. In fact I did have a hard time igniting the mix at all, often having failed ignitions, which would be more dangerous I agree if I were not careful.
I truly do appreciate your concern, I share the same. It was a while since I posted this thread, and I have learned much since about flash powders, and out of a few that I have tried myself this mix is my favorite, perhaps it is discovery's bias but with the tests I have done on it, it seems to be quite safe to handle, even wrapping it in a hard container and dropping it 200 meters down a cliff into a old mining site.
But yes, you are correct, of course, one mixture is never the same and might quite possibly be very unstable compared to earlier mixtures, this goes without saying and this applies to every energetic material in existence, would't you say? One can never be sure it is safe, one can only minimize that risk as long as the reward outweighs the risk and I feel that I have done so quite successfully with no failures yet, but one never knows when that failure comes and how bad it will be and as of about 2 months ago I stopped my flash powder experiments and moved on to more safe pyrotechnics like firebombs and bigger more vagrant fountains instead, more fun to look at and way easier on my heart while making!
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From extensive testing, mostly focused around stability and safety ( I like my face) I have not seen any apparent issues with my mix, S, Mg and KNO3, hitting with hard objects, heating, high moisture levels + already mentioned, etc..
So far everything has worked just fine , never combusted when struck and my hotplate needed to heat it above sulfurs melting point for it to ignite ( over 100 C*) which is not a temperature normally reached under any circumstances. In fact I did have a hard time igniting the mix at all, often having failed ignitions, which would be more dangerous I agree if I were not careful.
Once upon a time I reasoned like that - trusted in my own test results rather than common knowledge - and that resulted in a big fire in my parents basement. That was more than 20 years ago. I´m still not sure exactly what happened.
I truly do appreciate your concern, I share the same. It was a while since I posted this thread, and I have learned much since about flash powders
Thanks
I wonder what kind of magnesium you have if you need sulphur... Must be horribly bad.
I have seen hundreds of pyrotechnic compositions, and as far as I can remeber I have NEVER seen anyone using Mg and S in a flash powder. I think we can assume there is a reason for that.
*paus* Just now I browsed though a database of 300 pyrotechnic compositions. (Of which many are completely crazy) and I can only find two recipes in all categories containg both Mg and S;
The first is a "white star"
The recipe looks like an oxygen deprived burst charge with added magnesium... There must be cheaper ways to make a nice white star with much longer shelf life.
Potassium Perchlorate
Magnesium
Sulfur
Charcoal
The second is a "white flare star" ...that recipe we can forget about directly. The guy who invented it must have been high or something... I don´t know if we should laugh or cry? Perhaps we should do neither and instead spend our time on praying that no one ever tries this.
Potassium nitrate
Sulfur
Barium nitrate
Barium chlorate
Magnesium powder
Aluminum medium course
Aluminum fine
First of all: combing chlorates, with sulphur and magensium or Aluminium is extremely dangerous.
Second: The presence of a chlorate makes it impossible to add a pH lowering stabilizer for the nitrate/Al combo.
I´m not going to recommend recipes or raw material, because then I will feel responsible if anyone does something stupid,
But I must mention ONE thing!!! [:)]
There is a fairly new product on the market called "Blue aluminium". When you see the demonstraion video you might think that it is a hoax but it isn´t. Apparently you can´t even ignite flash powder made from this with a blow torch in an open space, but when you do confine it, they even claim that it is louder than "normal" flash powder.
The only thing I know about it is that they use Pentaerythritol when they make it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7FEsqVE-L4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7FEsqVE-L4)
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From my testing, I have noticed the excess of Sulfur really accelerates the reaction, but I would say this is more of an explosive than a flash powder at this point although I am not sure where you draw that line, and my magnesium is fine, 99.99.
Once upon a time I reasoned like that - trusted in my own test results rather than common knowledge
But if experiments contradicts common knowledge, one must take the opposite position of common knowledge, earth isn't round anymore, no disrespect intended, but over 500 tests with same comp with over 5 different types of Mg, S and KNO3 with all different suppliers.
I am not saying it's the best most safe thing every, of course not, but I am saying, from my experience which I would say is fairly decent with this particular blend, what I am doing is quite safe to handle, and while I would't stake my life on it, nor would I with anything as energetic as this.
I browsed though a database of 300 pyrotechnic compositions.
Interesting, where did you find it? If you don't want to post it, please feel free to send an mail.
The second
Who the hell made that? I would't come within 10 yards of that mix.^^
There must be cheaper ways to make a nice white star with much longer shelf life.
I did some minimal testing on normal gunpowder with magnesium added in, works really fine, cheap too if you find a nice provider, only 'expensive' part is the Magnesium but I have finally found a really nice supplier which are about 1/7th of the price of the same quantity from Sweden: But I haven't tested making stars out of it, not sure how it would burn, unsure how Mg does with alcohol for rolling and I am not very familiar with the ways of stars to be honest, I have only done simple strontium/gunpowder stars and they worked but, I am not an expert any sense of the word.
But I must mention ONE thing!!!
Wow, this is unlike anything I have ever seen with flash, it seems like a big.. fraud..
How can it not ignite in open air, sounds as if it is just pressure sensitive? I would like to see some hit tests on it, but if it isn't a hoax: It seems awesome, and you are just going to get me back into flash powders again :p