Chemicals in fireworks that produce color
Posted on | May 12, 2010 | No Comments
The color of fireworks is the makeup of the gunpowder in the shells. It’s certainly has a big visual aspect… and is very appealing… if people just wanted noise, they could fire off a spud gun! Anyway, a shell is a hollow sphere that consists of an explosive charge at the center “usually Trinitrotoluene or tnt for short”, another paper sphere around that, then what are called stars, and then a final hard paper sphere with a fuse that goes from the bottom to the center. The stars are made up of a blend of oxidizing agent, reducing agent, coloring agent (metal salt), and binders. When they burn they create visual and audio effects depending on the makeup. For instance, a red burning star has either lithium carbonate or strontium carbonate for a brighter red. silver is made with aluminum or titanium, blue is made with copper compounds. purple is a mixture of strontium “red” and copper “blue”, green contains barium chloride, yellow is made with sodium chloride, and orange is made with calcium chloride.
The mortar tube is a cardboard tube that the inside diameter is just big enough to allow the shell to slide in easily. The bottom of the tube is capped off and the top is open. The bottom will have a small hole for a fuse. Usually the bottom is pre-packed with lift powder but sometimes you may fill it yourself. Once the powder is in the bottom of the tube the shell will be placed in fuse down. When the fuse outside the mortar tube is lit it hits the lift powder causing the shell to lift high in the air at the same time as burning the shells fuse. The timing of the fuse will depend on the altitude of the shell.
Comments
Leave a Reply