131 replies to this topic

[digger]

I had noticed. In one he describes the process of tumbling a mixture of potassium chlorate, charcoal and red phosphorous. Given that he does appear to gather his information from random sources without knowing about it, with discretion, one can tell which compositions he lists are legitimate and have probably been used by someone out there, and which information is being given to him on the spot and is not safe at all. But I would indeed be wary of casuals wandering across his information and taking it at face value.

I'm still waiting for digger to get back to me on the source of short chain acids, at the moment. Not planning to react rancid butter with copper bases .

Now then MDH. I have been off work for the last couple of weeks. One accident and one management course. I have returned back this morning. I will dig out the literature in the next day or two to isolate the best source of these when refining.

We will also be sending some by product for molecular distillation in the next couple of months so we should be able to isolate fractions from C4 up.

So watch this space (it may take a little while).

[MDH]

Hi digger

I am grateful for your considerations of my experiments so far. But It may be worth mentioning that my current location is in North America. It might be expensive to ship it here.

I am not sure how involved in pyrotechnics right now, you are but I would be happy to send you chemical compounds, and any others interested here (Such as copper borate or sorbate, or the copper soap compounds). More feedback never hurts when testing a new chemical, and we all have different sets of supplies available to us.

[digger]

Hi digger

I am grateful for your considerations of my experiments so far. But It may be worth mentioning that my current location is in North America. It might be expensive to ship it here.

I am not sure how involved in pyrotechnics right now, you are but I would be happy to send you chemical compounds, and any others interested here (Such as copper borate or sorbate, or the copper soap compounds). More feedback never hurts when testing a new chemical, and we all have different sets of supplies available to us.

No problem, I am sure a few hudred grams will not cost too much to transport (when I get hold of some, which may be a little while) as I am sure it is ADR and IATA exempt.

I do have access at the moment to Fumaric acid (trans-butenedioic acid) as you mentioned carboxilic acids. Do you think that there is any hope metal salts of this? as I can get hold of a sack very cheaply.

Edited by digger, 08 October 2009 - 09:09 PM.

[a_bab]

Just an idea: there are 2 elusive colours I consider (green and blue). For the inorganic compounds pretty much everything has been tried, but for the organo-metalic compounds I'm sure there's a treasure waiting to be discovered.

So it may all boil down to getting a "organo copper compounds" book and starting to test the stuff listed in the book, with the limits imposed by costs/physical properties of the compounds.

[Mumbles]

I would think that organo-anything would be too expensive and reactive to be of much use. Quite a few organometallic compounds are water and/or air sensitive.

[MDH]

Hi digger

I don't think fumaric acid would work very well as a colour agent. I'm open to the idea of seeing a fumaric acid red since red is not too hard to achieve, but a quick search shows that salts of fumaric acid may extinguish fires, so it doesn't hold much value as a simultaneous fuel and color donor.

The ideal compound would provide high levels of metallic copper while simultaneously acting as a sufficient fuel with average oxidizers (perchlorates and chlorates). While acetates appear to fit this ideal, I have found that they burn very hot when made into stars with potassium perchlorate even compared to sorbates, which surprised me since sorbates are extremely reactive with perchlorates.

As always though, thanks for your interest in this development.

[a_bab]

I have seen some discussions about copper oxalate but no real test done.

LE: Just remembered another one: copper thiocyanate CuSCN. Saw somewhere (in one of the AFN's I guess) that is similar in performance to copper benzoate. Very easy to make, insoluble.

Any takers?

Edited by a_bab, 25 October 2009 - 04:13 PM.

[Mumbles]

One of the advantages of copper benzoate, or the relateds, have the advantage of being a fuel where CuO and CuCO3 don't stand up. Thiocyanate will be in the same class of non-fuels.

[fruitfulsteve]

Has anyone tried chlorosuccimide as a oxidiser/chlorine donor?

[fruitfulsteve]

Actually it's N-chlorosuccinimide i'll check the chemical formula it sounds like a pretty decent oxidiser.

[Potassium chlorate]

Hi digger

I don't think fumaric acid would work very well as a colour agent. I'm open to the idea of seeing a fumaric acid red since red is not too hard to achieve, but a quick search shows that salts of fumaric acid may extinguish fires, so it doesn't hold much value as a simultaneous fuel and color donor.

The ideal compound would provide high levels of metallic copper while simultaneously acting as a sufficient fuel with average oxidizers (perchlorates and chlorates). While acetates appear to fit this ideal, I have found that they burn very hot when made into stars with potassium perchlorate even compared to sorbates, which surprised me since sorbates are extremely reactive with perchlorates.

As always though, thanks for your interest in this development.

Would this make lead acetate an excellent white "colour" donor, the environmental aspects aside?


I'm still obsessed with the idea of using strontium chlorate for red together with shellac, the same way you use barium chlorate for green in the Weingart Bengal formula. I just can't find any source for it.

Edited by Pyroswede, 26 October 2009 - 09:38 PM.

[MDH]

Would this make lead acetate an excellent white "colour" donor, the environmental aspects aside?


I'm still obsessed with the idea of using strontium chlorate for red together with shellac, the same way you use barium chlorate for green in the Weingart Bengal formula. I just can't find any source for it.

I imagine so. Though I would be skeptical of why you would use lead acetate as opposed to simply sticking with aluminum.

Strontium chlorate already has been tested in the past by pyrotechnicians but one of its major problems is hygroscopicity.

I believe the bromates are less so, but they are consequentially more unstable, and thus further inhibitors of acid production and less sensitizing fuels would have to be employed, which totally changes the circumstances in which the colors would have to be produced - changing those circumstances could kill the color. I can see you are working on trying to use simultaneous oxidizers as color donors. If I were you, I would just stick with nitrates .

There was some discussion about using copper sulfide as a blue color agent on other forums. I can produce it easily, and will return to you all with results shortly (though, copper sulfide is nothing new, its use is not well documented in the amature pyrotechnics community).

[Mumbles]

I do believe CuS' use is documented in an article by Clive Jennings-White in a pyrotechnica article. The title involves something about esoteric blue color donors. It's the place people got the idea about using CuCl as well. While CuS might emit very nice colors, it's going to sensitize every composition it's used in. The same likely goes with the thiocyanate I saw posted earlier.

One big downfall of copper is all of the normal oxidizers based on it are unsuitable. Most are hygroscopic and explosive.

How exactly do you intend to use N-chlorosuccinimide with copper? It's just going to oxidize the copper nucleus and float away as succinimide, no salts. If you had succinic acid, you'd be on the right track. N-chlorosuccinimide would probably be strong enough to oxidize copper to copper (III) which wont be very happy and would probably start oxidizing the solvent.

[Mumbles]

I stand corrected. Copper does form complexes with phthalimide, although there is no need to start from the N-chloro form. I still believe that would oxidize the copper center.

[Potassium chlorate]

I imagine so. Though I would be skeptical of why you would use lead acetate as opposed to simply sticking with aluminum.

Well, for one thing, lead acetate is cheaper. It's also less dangerous to handle, as long as you don't eat it, while aluminium dust is very harmful.

Strontium chlorate already has been tested in the past by pyrotechnicians but one of its major problems is hygroscopicity.

Yes, but you can get rid of the water in it by heating it in an oven for one hour at 100^oC. Then you mix it with shellac in an alcohol solution. The shellac "seals" the mix, so that it would be hard for moist from the air to re-enter the mix.