Homebrew Chlorine Donors

[brok3n]

Hello.

 

I have been looking into producing chlorine donors for myself as they aren't readily available in Australia as far as I have seen.

 

So far I have found no information on the internet for the synthesis of the many popular chlorine donors. What is the amateur pyro to do if one wants to make organically-fuelled colour compositions?

 

I will be conducting some research into trying to extract PVC from PVC pipes/cards (like ID/credit cards), glues and pretty much anything that contains it. Hopefully I will get somewhere.

 

Does anyone have anything to contribute on the subject?

 

Please pull me up if I am missing anything - I am relatively new to this and don't know everything.

 

By the way, would anyone like to send me some small amounts of different sized meshes? I am in a bit of a financial jam at the moment and cannot find meshes other than fly screen. I will pay the shipping, but I cannot afford to pay for the actual mesh.

 

I will be posting a tutorial on how to extract the resins from tree sap shortly, when I have time.

[asilentbob]

If your in Australia... can you get potassium chlorate and/or potassium perchlorate? If not organic chlorine donors should be the least of your worries.

 

p-dichlorobenzene... is technically a chlorine donor... but a crappy one at that.

 

As for using PVC... if you can't get powder your best bet is likely dissolving it in some good solvent then calculating how much should be added and mixed with the other components of your star comp. You can always file it down, but the results will be rather disappointing.

 

If colors are out of your reach currently don't dispair, chrysanthemums, glitters, etc are some of the most beautiful effects IMO.

[brok3n]

I have purchased a Pt plated Ti anode, so I am well on my way to Chlorate and Perc production. But don't the formulas always ask for an additional Chlorine donor?

 

Apparently Hexachloroethane is feedstock for cattle, but a page on Skylighter says it normally is out of the flame before it decomposes or something along those lines.

[DeAdFX]

Look at the backs of certain pvc cements as they may contain PVC resin or other chlorinated resins. This will be much cheaper than extracting pvc from tubing/piping. The next best bet would be to buy large quantities of PVC (clear) tubing and dissolve that using MEK or methylene chloride.

[brok3n]

Look at the backs of certain pvc cements as they may contain PVC resin or other chlorinated resins. This will be much cheaper than extracting pvc from tubing/piping. The next best bet would be to buy large quantities of PVC (clear) tubing and dissolve that using MEK or methylene chloride.

What does the latter do?

[oskarchem]

What about, just breaking up some PVC pipe? I mean PVC contanes quite alot of chlorine (In my truck, one day we had 3pipes and about 25min later it as seriously smelling chlorine)

[GraafVaag]

Too bad, PVC pipe is not pure PVC at all. Mostly consists of other plastics, rather than PVC. If it worked as good as pure PVC, why would we even bother buying pure?

Anyway, one could try. Next week, I might find some time..

 

PVC glue is said to have a higher percentage PVC, so that could be an other possibility.

[oskarchem]

Yeah, Ok so if anyone has some organic fueled stars to try out chop up some PVC pipe and test... I would of loved to do it, but well, need to find a ceramics shop to buy some chems...

So GraafVaag if you get some time to try it out, it coul be vey interesting

[Miech]

I've already done some tests with different sources of pvc before I got pure powder, and most are disappointing. Electric 3/4" tubing gives almost the worst chlorine donor I've ever had, and isn't capable of producing a convincing color. Sewer tubing is somewhat better, but still not really usuable. PVC glue gave the best results, and is comparable to pure pvc.

 

The method I used was filing of a certain quantity, dissolving it in DCM and mizing it through a composition using only pvc and potassium perchlorate as chlorine donor. Without chlorine the flame was white, with chlorine present it was green.

[Gottagotomoz]

As stated before, it is sometimes found in PVC glue. Check out this link for more information http://pyroguide.com/index.php?title=PVC

 

Also, check out there board. I know a couple of the members there are also Australian, so chances are they could help you out.

[GraafVaag]

Hey Miech, good to see you here!

Electric 3/4" tubing gives almost the worst chlorine donor I've ever had, and isn't capable of producing a convincing color. Sewer tubing is somewhat better, but still not really usuable.

Lol, that are the two I was about to test. I don't think that's still necessary now.

[Arthur]

If you can find a plastics factory that extrudes PVC then you can approach them fo a few kilos of polymer, The actual extrusion mix will be possibly 50& PVC and contain some waxes (notably stearic acid) and lots of stabilisers, all of which will be flame retarding! Which would spoil things.

 

There are two interesting chemicals in my thoughts.

 

1/ potassium salts of trichloro acetic acid -caution it's a very strong acid if you make it yourself!

 

2/ there are some interesting per-fluoro sulphamic acid salts used as brighteners in electro-plating can something like be synthesised as a per-chloro acid and a stable salt used as a Cl donor

 

The advantage of PVC/saran/parlon is that they are bulk comodities for other industries so they are cheap(ish!) special chermicals specially synthed will prob be too expensive.

[Mumbles]

Saran is actually specially synthed for pyrotechnics. Normal production runs of saran produce essentially large blocks of it, as it is always melted down for it's use in industry. As a side product, a small percentage of dust was always produced. This was packaged up and more or less sold as waste, of which the pyro companies picked up. A while ago, early 90's I believe, some engineers "fixed" the powder problem, and thus no more was produced, and thus went off the market. Said pyro manufactuers contacted Dow Chemical, and offered to buy it by the shipping container if they made it available again(~40,000lbs I believe). Realizing that there was a demand for it, they do 1 production run a year of the powder.

 

Completely off topic, but some may find it interesting.

 

Also, parlon is flame retarding as well, which just goes to prove that it doesn't always spoil things. However the other components of PVC piping and such will absolutly kill the flame color.

 

One other product to look at is Saran wrap/static wrap/cling film whatever you want to call it. The cheap-o varieties are roughly 50-50 PVC-Saran. It could be used as a chlorine donor perhaps if it were dissolved.

[brok3n]

One other product to look at is Saran wrap/static wrap/cling film whatever you want to call it. The cheap-o varieties are roughly 50-50 PVC-Saran. It could be used as a chlorine donor perhaps if it were dissolved.

In acetone? How do you go about this? Disolve it in the mixture and then when the composition dries, it is integrated in?

 

I will have to do some testing when I get my Perc production going again - mum "cleaned" my room and lost my platinum wire.

[tentacles]

Many of us source PVC powder/granules from places that make PVC pipe/sheet/etc. Several people I know have friends who work at such places, and when they unload it from the rail cars it spills piles of it on the ground - which they normally toss. FrankRizzo has a bucket full of the stuff that was just swept up. It works fine in comps, as it is just virgin PVC powder.

 

I don't think acetone will dissolve saran/pvc acceptably, you need something with more oomph. Saran doesn't like to dissolve in much anything, though. I seem to remember the recommended solvent being a nasty one. Look on firefox's site, maybe. Keep in mind that name brand Saran wrap is now polyethylene, rather than PVC/PVDC. Glad wrap is also PE according to the MSDS.

"In 2004, however, the formula was changed to low density polyethylene due to environmental concerns about the chloride."

[hashashan]

I know that the only (reacheble) solvent for PVC is THF. It is not very expensive

[Sylar]

According to the ullman encyclopedia of industrial chemistry I have, the making of PVC cannot be done in home setups ... something to do with high pressure double walled reactor

 

But perhaps there are alternatives that can be made with simple processes and reactors.

Like bubbling chlorine trough a solvent or a solution of hydrocarbons ... perhaps someone with a bit more chemical knowledge can be of some assistance here.

 

 

Hexachloroethane seems easier, but still ...

[Bonny]

Many of us source PVC powder/granules from places that make PVC pipe/sheet/etc. Several people I know have friends who work at such places, and when they unload it from the rail cars it spills piles of it on the ground - which they normally toss. FrankRizzo has a bucket full of the stuff that was just swept up. It works fine in comps, as it is just virgin PVC powder.

Generally most plastic resins (like PVC or PE or saran) are either in powder or pellet form. I work in the plastic industry but unfortunately only use LDPE at my plant. PVC extrusion plants are very common and I'm lucky enough to know someone at a local one. Usually a few lbs can be had for free and as Tentacles said if it is waste spillage then it should be even easier to get, and you probably won't even need to know someone.

 

Some chems are probably not really worth the hassle of trying to make...

[Arthur]

http://www.sciencelab.com/page/S/PVAR/10427/SLT2056

 

Trichloroacetic acid is trade available in the states. While the Strontium and Barium salts wouldn't likely be better than present compositions. What about a copper salt so that copper aceto arsenite (Paris Green) could be replaced for blues by copper trichlor acetate. -Copper for blue, with all the chlorine attatched for donation in flame.

 

CCl3 - COOH

CCl3 - COO Cu

 

Loadsa chlorine just where it's wanted.

[GalFisk]

From what little information I could google, it seems that copper (II) trichlroacetate is a trihydrate. I can't find any info on hygroscopicity for either this or the anhydrous form.

[brok3n]

I have found a few synths for Trichloroacetic Acid - will try them when I have the right chemicals.

 

Also, "PVC Cement" is found in the hardware for sticking PVC pipes together. Is this the glue you were talking about? It's MSDS says that it contains around 70% mixed solvents (THF/MEK) and 30% PVC resin.

 

This got me thinking - if this is used to "glue" PVC together, then surely MEK dissolves the fillers and other junk which is used with conjunction with PVC in the pipe? The MEK would disolve the pipe gunk and the THF would dissolve the PVC. Maybe you could extract the PVC from pipe via a hot bath with MEK?

[tentacles]

If you're dead set on using PVC glue, just thin it out with more MEK and use it as a liquid binder. Otherwise get your hands on some PVC, Saran or Parlon resin, it's not that hard to find PVC certainly.

 

Have you considered how much large quantities of solvents would cost? Not to mention the scrutiny picking up 5 or 10 gallons of MEK would bring you. You could easily spend days and hundreds of dollars to find out that you cannot, in fact, extract clean virgin PVC from piping in the comfort of your own home. Do some research, find a company that makes PVC pipe or slabs near you, drive by there place and see if you can't just walk up to where they unload the hopper cars, and scoop some off the damn ground.

[Miech]

Did someone ever tried to use dechlorane as chlorine donor? It seems to be a superior chlorine donor with 12 chlorine atoms per molecule, but since it is banned in the 1970's it will be hard to find. It was originally synthesized to be used as a fire retardant, but I dont think 5% of a composition total weight will extinguish the flame if used with a strong oxidizer.

 

There are actually a few blue star compositions on Skylighter using it as chlorine donor, but I'm not sure what the effect would look like. I don't feel like ordering a kilo of crap for $60,-.

[tentacles]

I have some dechlorane from firefox -I got it because it's supposed to make such a good blue. Have not tried it yet.

[Mumbles]

I've used it, and it does make a very nice blue. The stars I have made were organically fueled, and pretty dim though, so they can't really be used in conjunction with metal fueled stars, or bright glitters. I wouldn't say the color justifies the price for you however. It's nice yes, but Parlon makes just as good of blue stars, IMO. Parlon is also a flame retardant.

 

Dechlorane does have a little bit extra chlorine as compared so parlon(10%) or saran (5%). The real figure that counts is chlorine atoms by mass, not per molecule.