Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Chemistry => Topic started by: Nyxxie on 05/04/2018 18:04:25
-
Not sure if this is for this board or the experiment board, my apologies.
I am going to be doing a gender reveal for my sister's pregnancy. To do this, we wanted to light a huge fire pit and throw in a chemical to change the fire into the color (red/pink for girl, blue/violet for boy).
From my research, I found that Strontium Chloride is the best option for red/pink and Copper I Chloride is the best for blue. I found that Iron Filings make great gold sparkles, as well as Magnesium shavings make for a great silver spark.
It is my goal to have my sister and brother in law throw a satchel full of chemical-enriched wax pucks into the fire pit fire and have the fire first glow many different colors, a rainbow of colors until the other colors die down and the pink or blue for the gender remain.
To do this, I was going to create many wax discs with many different colored chemicals and methanol (to create a more vivid color) by first melting wax, adding methanol and the chemical, mixing and setting to dry. The pink or blue one would be the LARGEST wax puck/disc and would, hence, color the longest after the rest of the colors died down.
I was going to add all the discs and the iron filings into a satchel with the largest disc (the gender color in it's own satchel so it remains last), and then when they throw it in, it will create this spectacle.
My question is, does this sound like a viable option and experiment?
Is using methanol in the wax an unnecessary step?
Is it ok to mix methanol with wax? Will it still harden?
How can I insure that the blues, yellows, oranges, greens will die down and the gender color (lets say RED in this case/girl), remains?
How long will it take the color to shine through? How can I make sure this is done within the course of a minute or so?
How much of a chemical should I use to ensure it is seen in a large fire pit (about 3-4 feet in height)
Any further advice? Tips? Tricks?
Thank you in advance.
-
Lithium salts give a better pink color than strontium salts, and would pretty easily overcome most of the colors in the flame. see here:
Copper (I) chloride does give a blue color, but it can be pretty faint compared to the rest of the flames, and may well have some green in it too from Cu(II) impurities (and the Cu(I) will probably turn into Cu(II) in the flame). Sulfur burns with a beautiful blue flame, but the smoke is very noxious, so I can't really recommend it on anything close to the scale you propose. Potassium salts give a nice blue but is definitely too faint to overcome the flame.
I believe that zinc dust burns with a blue flame, tossing a small amount (like half a gram) into a fire might cause a flash of blue light, as see here:
Overall, this demonstration sounds rather elaborate, and would certainly require experimentation before execution. If you have no experience with this sort of thing, I would recommend against it, unless you are willing to do several hours of research and experimentation beforehand. (we can answer some questions here, and give some warnings, but there are too many ways for it to go quite wrong that I can't in good conscience recommend you try it unless you already have some understanding of chemistry or pyrotechnics.
I would advise against mixing the methanol and wax. The wax and methanol are probably immiscible (like oil and water), so either the wax will harden into little chunks floating in the methanol, or you might get bubbles of methanol contained within a hard case of wax. The first case is messy, the second case might be dangerous when thrown into the fire (if the methanol boils before the wax melts it might burst and spray burning methanol droplets out of the desired burning region).
I believe that spraying solutions (either in methanol or in water) might be the easiest, um... solution. like this:
-
Thank you for your guidance!
What about, instead of a wax puck/disc, I treat some sawdust with aqueous Copper(I)-chloride or Strontium or Lithium. Let that sawdust dry and throw it in the fire in a satchel? Would the sawdust treated with the aqueous mixture and then dried act better?
-
Copper (I) chloride is barely soluble in water. You may be able to mix the solid powder with sawdust (or flour) to get the desired effect.
Lithium chloride is very soluble in water and in methanol, and could easily be used to soak wood or paper products in. You could probably also be able to use a solid-solid mixture as described above.
WARNING: throwing fine sawdust or flour into a fire can create a substantial fireball. If you have a lot of the dust in the air before lighting the fire, it could even explode the fuel-air mixture, so be very careful!!!
-
Warning: Have everyone stand well back, and away from the direction of throwing/squirting any chemicals.
...but there have to be safer ways to wish for the safe arrival of a new baby!