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Russian Green Fires


Mumbles

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Here are some green compositions made by me and rip.

Central flame area is white, because of infrared rays emmision of heated gasses, and any digital camera is senitive to them causing central area overbright. All mixures tested by me are 10g mixture samples placed on paper. Set of mixes contains amazing emerald green on bariumbromate (Ba(BrO3)2) which is trualy amazing chemical.

Note that that mixture does not contain any chlorine at all and green emission is the product of BaBr+ molecules! :) If someone is interested i can describe how to produce barrium bromate.

 

Name of composition: Engager's Green Ray #3

Composition Type: Colored fire

Creator: Engager

Color/Effect: Green

The Composition: (by weight)

 

Barium Bromate Hydrate (Ba(BrO3)2*H2O) - 90%

Orange Shellac Powder - 10%

 

Any Precautions/Incompatabilities: Ammonium, Sulfur, Metalls.

Precedure/Preparation: Mix fine and bind by alcohol. Barium

bromate is easily produced by reaction of potassium bromate,

with barium nitrate in solution. Barium bromate is not hygroscopic

and insoluble in water.

 

Images:

 

 

 

Name of composition: Engager's Green Ray #1

Composition Type: Colored fire

Creator: Engager

Color/Effect: Green

The Composition: (by weight)

 

Barium Perchlorate (anhydrous) - 85%

Orange Shellac Powder - 15%

 

Any Precautions/Incompatabilities: Barium is toxic.

Precedure/Preparation: Bind with alcohol. Protect from moisture.

 

Image:

 

Name of composition: Engager's Green Ray #2

Composition Type: Colored fire

Creator: Engager

Color/Effect: Green

The Composition: (by weight)

 

Barium Perchlorate (anhydrous) - 80.9%

Orange Shellac Powder - 14.3%

Hexaclorethane - 4.7%

 

Any Precautions/Incompatabilities: Barium is toxic, so is Hexaclorethane.

Precedure/Preparation: Bind with alcohol, protect from moisture.

 

Images:

 

Name of composition: Russian Green #1

Composition Type: Colored fire

Creator: Rip

Color/Effect: Green

The Composition: (by weight)

 

Barium Nitrate - 60%

PVC - 20%

Sulfur - 10%

Magnessium - 10%

 

Any Precautions/Incompatabilities: Barium is toxic, don't combine with chlorates.

Precedure/Preparation: Bind with dextrin or shellac, add some

boric acid due to magnessium+nitrate.

 

Images:

 

http://www.ruspyro.net/green/comp1/comp1-1.jpg

 

http://www.ruspyro.net/green/comp1/comp1-2.jpg

 

 

Name of composition: Russian Green #2

Composition Type: Colored fire

Creator: Rip

Color/Effect: Green

The Composition: (by weight)

 

Barium Nitrate - 37%

Barium Chloride - 15%

Ammonium Chloride - 4%

Hexamethylenetetramine - 5%

Smokeless powder - 21%

Alluminium (fine) - 15%

Sulfur - 3%

 

Any Precautions/Incompatabilities: Barium is toxic, don't combine with chlorates.

Precedure/Preparation: Binded with pyrohyline (nitrocellulose

nitration number 2.0-2.5) in acetone.

 

Images:

 

http://www.ruspyro.net/green/comp2/comp2-1.jpg

 

 

Name of composition: Russian Green #3

Composition Type: Colored fire

Creator: Rip & Engager

Color/Effect: Green with spark trail

The Composition: (by weight)

 

Ammonium Perchlorate - 50%

Barium Nitrate - 35%

Shellac powder - 10%

Alluminium - 5%

 

Any Precautions/Incompatabilities: Barium is toxic, don't combine with chlorates.

Precedure/Preparation: Binded with alcohol. Add some boric acid

due nitrate+alluminium.

 

Images:

 

http://www.ruspyro.net/green/comp3/comp3-1.jpg

 

 

Name of composition: Russian Green #4

Composition Type: Colored fire

Creator: Engager

Color/Effect: Green

The Composition: (by weight)

 

Barium nitrate - 48.52%

Ammonium perchlorate - 29.41%

Hexamethylenetetramine - 10.29%

Shellac - 4.41%

Thiourea (CS(NH2)2) - 1.47%

Hexaclorethane - 5.88%

 

Any Precautions/Incompatabilities: Barium is toxic, so is Hexaclorethane.

Precedure/Preparation: Bind with alcohol.

 

Images:

 

Name of composition: Russian Green #5

Composition Type: Colored fire

Creator: Engager

Color/Effect: Green

The Composition: (by weight)

 

Barium nitrate - 51.25%

Ammonium perchlorate - 25%

Hexamethylenetetramine - 8.75%

Shellac - 3.75%

Thiourea (CS(NH2)2) - 1.25%

Hexaclorethane - 10%

 

Any Precautions/Incompatabilities: Barium is toxic, so is Hexaclorethane.

Precedure/Preparation: Bind with alcohol.

 

Images:

 

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Posted by: Swany Posted on: January 9th, 2006, 8:42pm

Some very impressive greens! Some interesting chemicals as well, barium perchlorate and bromate. Did you purchase these chemicals, or make them?

 

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Posted by: justanotherpyro Posted on: January 9th, 2006, 8:42pm

Very nice addition to the compositions section.

 

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Posted by: Engager Posted on: January 9th, 2006, 8:51pm

I'm chemist, almost finished Russian D.E.Mendeleev's University of Chemical Technology. I'm easily producing such chemicals at home. If you have any interest in them i can describe how you can make your own.

 

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Posted by: Engager Posted on: January 9th, 2006, 8:58pm

Pure barium perchlorate can be produced in two different ways:

 

1) Reaction of chloric acid (HClO4) with barium hydrohyde or carbonate. Acid is fully neutralised, end of neutralisation can be found by checking pH or by moment when gas formation stops.

 

2HClO4 + Ba(OH)2 = Ba(ClO4)2 + 2H2O

Or

BaCO3 + 2HClO4 = Ba(ClO4)2 + CO2 + H2O

 

I used 72% HClO4, which i made at home by disstilation of H2SO4/KClO4 mixture. KClO4 was made by exchange reaction with NaClO4 made by NaCl solution electrolysis. But there is no need to do that, since HClO4 is easily avialable in chemical supply shop. It's important analytic chemistry reagent.

 

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Posted by: Engager Posted on: January 9th, 2006, 9:08pm

Second method is the bit of art. Barium perchlorate can be made by reaction of Ba(OH)2 or BaCO3 with ammonium perchlorate solution:

 

BaCO3 + 2NH4ClO4 = Ba(ClO4)2 + 2NH3 + H2O + CO2

Ba(OH)2 + 2NH4ClO4 = Ba(ClO4)2 + 2NH3 + 2H2O

 

Ammonium is removed by boiling solution. Then solution is boiled until all water evaporated leaving white hygroscopic crystalls of barium perchlorate.

 

Barium bromate can be produced by mixing solutions of KBrO3 with Ba(NO3)2 solution. Barium bromate is insoluble and precipitates. Potassium bromate is easily made by slowly adding bromine in to hot KClO3 solution. Solution is boiled until all Cl2 and residue of free Br2 evaporate, and then fully evaporated by boiling, leaving white crystals of KBrO3 KClO3 was made by electrolysis, bromine was made by mixing H2SO4+NaBr+Oxidiser mixture.

 

Pottassium bromate can be easily obtained in chemical supply shops. It's analytic chemistry reagent too, it's used in bromate metric analisys methods, and is cheap.

 

Quite simple i guess

 

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Posted by: Crazy_Swede Posted on: January 11th, 2006, 2:08am

It is interesting to read on rec.pyrotechnics that "...Chertier reported as early as 1836 that he had abandoned the use of barium bromate in preference to barium chlorate for green flame due to the bromate's greater expense and marginally poorer color-producing properties...", see http://groups.google.se/group/rec.pyrotech...c34b1672dfcae96

 

Also, are you aware of the cancerogenic properties of thiourea?

 

Otherwise I'm impressed by you Russian guys. But, could you take pictures from a greater distance? In that way it would be easier to compare the different colour purities!

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  • 2 months later...

Same problem like I had with the red formula, Russian Green #1 don't burn in continuity and extinguish him self every time I light it. didn't tried it as star or flare yet.

 

Any one got experience with this?

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quest,

 

I suspect your chems aren't fine enough to start with, and you're not screening them enough to mix properly. This is what I do, and it works great:

 

Start with chems ground as finely as you can get them, then sift them together *3* times through a 60-mesh screen, tumble-mixing for a minute or so between siftings. I had the exact same problem that you did when I made a batch of stars last summer. Once I started doing it as above, no more problems.

 

M

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All the chems are clean and bought from chem store.

The mesh isn't great, about 100 mesh is the PVC and the barium nitrate, and about 150 mesh is the Mg.

 

I'll try to mix better. hope this will solve the problem. Maybe my barium nitrate absorbed moisture?

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  • 5 years later...

*BUMP!*

 

Hello! Many of you know me from the UKPS forum. Those who do also know my passion for barium chlorate and my thoughts about strontium chlorate as an "equivalent" for deep red colours.

 

The perchlorates of barium and strontium seem even more promising, if it would be possible to make stars of them in a dry enough environment and sealing them with an absolutely waterproof prime.

 

Engager's Green Ray #1 seems very interesting. But why not use hexamethylenetetramine and sulfur as fuels instead of shellac? Since it is a perchlorate, both of them are compatible with it.

 

Barium chlorate is incompatible with sulfur and hexamethylenetetramine; they will form chlorine dioxide and ammonium chlorate with it. It also suffers from a relatively low oxygen content: about 31% compared with 39% for potassium chlorate, 46% for potassium perchlorate and 54% for ammonium perchlorate. Barium perchlorate on the other hand contains about 38%, i.e. almost as much as potassium chlorate. This means that it will react very good with a "strong" fuel containing no oxygen, like hexamethylenetetramine. Sulfur will aid in ignition and, from what I've understood, making the flame envelope bigger.

 

What do you think? :)

Edited by Potassiumchlorate
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*BUMP!*

 

Hello! Many of you know me from the UKPS forum. Those who do also know my passion for barium chlorate and my thoughts about strontium chlorate as an "equivalent" for deep red colours.

 

The perchlorates of barium and strontium seem even more promising, if it would be possible to make stars of them in a dry enough environment and sealing them with an absolutely waterproof prime.

 

Engager's Green Ray #1 seems very interesting. But why not use hexamethylenetetramine and sulfur as fuels instead of shellac? Since it is a perchlorate, both of them are compatible with it.

 

Barium chlorate is incompatible with sulfur and hexamethylenetetramine; they will form chlorine dioxide and ammonium chlorate with it. It also suffers from a relatively low oxygen content: about 31% compared with 39% for potassium chlorate, 46% for potassium perchlorate and 54% for ammonium perchlorate. Barium perchlorate on the other hand contains about 38%, i.e. almost as much as potassium chlorate. This means that it will react very good with a "strong" fuel containing no oxygen, like hexamethylenetetramine. Sulfur will aid in ignition and, from what I've understood, making the flame envelope bigger.

 

What do you think? :)

 

Hi!

In practice, I think it is impossible to get usable comps using barium perchlorate. I was a moderator at www.ruspyro.net (Engager was admin) forum and we had a lot of disscussing and experiments around the barium and strontium perchlorates. IMHO perchlorates of barium and strontium are too hygroscopic to use them in pyrotechnic comps even in dry environment and using waterproof prime.

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Impossible to make them? Sad. Would have been amazing.

 

Just to experiment and see what it would be like, you could mix a small amount of barium chlorate, hexamethylenetetramine and sulfur and use it immediately. The perchlorate would be something similar, I think:

 

Barium chlorate 80%

Hexamethylenetetramine 18%

Sulfur 2%

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  • 9 months later...

quest,

 

I suspect your chems aren't fine enough to start with, and you're not screening them enough to mix properly. This is what I do, and it works great:

 

Start with chems ground as finely as you can get them, then sift them together *3* times through a 60-mesh screen, tumble-mixing for a minute or so between siftings. I had the exact same problem that you did when I made a batch of stars last summer. Once I started doing it as above, no more problems.

 

M

i am having same problem my composition wont ignite at all...

My barium nitrate,magnesium is fine enough but pvc is somewhat coarse...what do you think...

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