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Colored Alcohol Flames


ewest

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And on that note, can you use muriatic acid as the boric acid catalyst rather than sufiric acid? And about what percentage?
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Absolutely. Use 1-2% by volume of 32% HCL.

 

Note: The acid really isn't necessary to get a nice green flame color, only if you wanted to isolate methyl borate. Boric acid is cheap, so just add an excess for coloring flames.

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Ewest, did you do anything special to make the stuff dissolve?

No, I didn't, but it didn't dissolve completely either, but it dissolved enough. I had the same effect as you describe however; right at first it wasn't very Red, but give it a couple seconds and it'll turn a nice Red.

 

I've since filled a spray bottle with it and have it sitting in the shed, anytime I need a quick pick me up I squirt it into a lighter B) Now THAT comes out really Red!

 

lja, I've wondered about the Sterno, I have a few cans so I'll be giving that a try, thanks for the tip!

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The HCl would also act as Cl donor if I'm not wrong.

A colored flame mix a friend of mine came up with:

*1 part CuSO4

*enough HCl that the CuSO4 will dissolve completly

*Ethanol double the volume of the HCl (2 parts ethanol/1 part HCl)

It will start burning with green color and then will turn to a blue-greenish color, similar to Aqua stars color.

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The chlorine donor won't actually help the color much. The chlorine helps with metal ions. The (metal)Cl product are generally better color emitters than the lone metals.
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Another problem I had was with the tiki torch. I took the jar and wick out of one of our tiki torches and filled it with the methanol/strontium chloride mix. It burned mostly red, but went out after only a couple of minutes, and the flame size was very small, more like a flame aura around the wick than an actual flame. Would a petroleum based liquid fuel be better such as kerosene? I think the methanol was having trouble being wicked.
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Cpl,

 

There's a limit to how much colorant can actually be burned in the flame without leaving a crusty deposit on the wick as the methanol evaporates. You'll need to experiment to find the smallest amount of material that will color it satisfactorily.

 

 

-------------------------------------------------------

R.I.P Eugene "Tad" Kolwicz...so very very sad. :(

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  • 2 weeks later...

Mumbles: Ah, my school has taught me that all are esters, some are just mineral esters to be specific.

 

Caramanos2000: KCl most probably give a pinkish violet, but K doesn't give much of a bright flame.

 

And btw, what is sterno?

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Sterno is ethanol jelly. Ethanol on a solid form made with ethanol and calcium acetate. It is quite fun to make

 

 

WARNING! Contains extremely bad english :)

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haha nice movie :-)

 

Altough I expected it to burn orange because of the Calcium.

 

But still, btw how does this work? Is it the recristalisation that catches the ethanol or does acetate and ethanol form a complex?

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That might be true, because methanol behaves the same with calcium acetate. I have never seen sterno in my life, so i have no idea.
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From wikipedia:

Invented around 1900, Sterno is made from ethanol, methanol, water and an amphoteric oxide gelling agent, plus a dye that gives it a characteristic pink color. Designed to be odorless, a 7 oz (198 g) can will burn for up to two hours. The methanol is added to denature the product, which essentially is intended to make it too toxic to be drinkable

 

So it's ethanol and a little methanol.

 

 

origin:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterno

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I had a look at MSDS's from Sterno. It depends on the product. Its either methanol or denatured ethanol.
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  • 3 months later...

GOD ASS FUCKING DAMMIT XD

 

WHY WHY WHYYY !! XD

 

 

SHIT NEVER WORKS WITH ME XD

 

Sorry but I am expremly pissed off right now.

 

 

I just made 6 colours and only one works.

 

H3BO3 works in methanol.

 

and Li,Na,Ca,Cu clorides and KI just give blue with me. YES EVEN NACL XD

 

I did 3,3 grams in 100 ml and shoke it till it desolved. Did some drops in a bowl and it all burned blue XD sometimes you could see some sparks of red or so (Li).

 

I used good grade chems. Li was analytical.

 

WHY DOESN'T IT WORK XD pissing me off so much.

 

Does the methanol need to be very hot (so burning a while) before seeing colour or so?

 

And please, I neeed an anser withing 8 hours.

 

Sorry for the screaming..

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it's a bit past 8 hours, but you need more salts than that. Add it until it won't dissolve anymore. This is how I always made them for demos in chem class. I placed them in little 100mL ground glass bottles a few days before, and shook them before and after school. LiCl, NaCl, KI or KCl, CuCl2, BaCl2, and SrCl2 were all prepared in this manner. The barium was kinda weak, like a lime color, but the others worked fairly well.
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  • 3 months later...

Fabulous thread.

 

Just a few notes on my experiences:

 

I like to add a few grams of the dry chem to a fireproof dish, then pour on some alcohol. Not much measuring, but it works fine.

 

Also, if you ain't got a racing shop around that sells methanol, go to your paint store or whatever big box or hardware store is convenient and back there in the paint department you'll find gallon cans of Denatured Alcohol. (Works like a peach).

 

Heard rumors that Potassium Chloride yielded purple flames, but that didn't work for me. Also, on the Lithium Chloride note, I worked hard on that one because of rumor that it yielded violet flames but for all the trouble and expense, it really wasn't any better than the red I got from Strontium, which, as has been said, is WAY cheaper.

 

Wonderful to see that Cesium yields purple. That's the one color I'd love to achieve.

 

Meantime, thanx all, for a great thread and some delicious advice.

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  • 5 months later...

I've let it sit for about 10 minutes. Half a normal eating spoon on Copper Carbonate in about 800ml EtOH.

 

It does nothing, yet it is saturated because I have a big pile sitting on the bottom of the jar.

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Copper carbonate doesn't dissolve as well as the chloride analog. I usually add salt to the methanol until there is a pile on the bottom of the jar, and then shake it every 15 minutes for about 2 hours. Anyhting that doesn't dissolve in that time won't dissolve anyway.

 

For a deeper color I would suggest adding some trichloroethane or chloroform to the fuel just before lighting. This is strongly discouraged for indoor use or windless days, because some very toxic phosgene will form.

 

I think it would be fun to put one of these mixtures in a lampare shell. Probably a flash break will overshine the weak methanol flame, so I'll be using H3 pulverone.

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I've got copper carbonate, stromium carbonate. and I think barium carbonate. Any way I can use those and what colors would they make?
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You can neutralize them with acid. HCl being the obvious choice for it's donation of both soluble salts and chlorine. You might be able to add some directly to the ethanol/CuCO3 solution, but I have concerns over how the water would interact with the flame color.

 

Acetic acid (vinegar) is also another possibility. I think it would work better with strontium and copper than it would with barium. I believe copper acetate is soluble in alcohol, but I'm not sure about strontium or barium.

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The copper carbonate mixed with 70% alcohol yields green flames but only when heated with a butane torch or when I tried to blow it out.

 

I managed to make some nice little burners from beer cans left over from Friday's party. Just cut two in half then nestle the bottoms together. It stops it from burning whatever you set it on and the base can be weighted to stop it from getting knocked over.

 

So what exactly would the acids do and what would they change it over to?

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The acids would change the copper carbonate into the salt associating itself with the acid. If you put copper carbonate into hydrochloric acid, it would make copper(II) chloride in water, and the gas CO2. Same with acetic acid, just turning it to copper acetate. Copper acetate and chloride are both soluble in water, and the chloride has the added bonus of being a chlorine donor.
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