"In addition to what you do to chemists when they die, barium is a..." That might just be the best sentence I've ever been immediately greeted with upon entering a video.
Your videos are very informative and entertaining. I can't wait to see what else you have planned and to see how your channel grows. And now a funny story: I accidentally bought myself magnesium and aluminum shavings instead of the powders (and considering I was careless enough to make that mistake, it was a very good thing). The aluminum is pretty much unusable for pyro directly, but the magnesium turned out to be fun with KClO4, as the relatively small surface area and small amounts made it much milder.
Can you provide 2 very easy composition of green and red sparkler ( using only barium and strontium nitrate + Sulphur + pvc ) but not using any kind of chlorate & perchlorate
Great video with much in-depth information involving barium in pyrotechnics. I've worked with sodium orange / yellows, strontium reds, and copper blues but have refrained from working with barium as of yet due to its toxicity. What you have here to say definitely makes me further question how exactly to deal with leftovers and cleanup. Still, I'm trying to find a middle ground. On the one hand, barium is preached to be this really nasty animal thats going to easily kill you if you slip up on PPE. On the other, your lighting compositions, be it sparklers, fountains, shells - filled with barium. And guess what? Smoke! And more smoke! It seems like all of a sudden its no longer an issue. People standing around enjoying fireworks, including those containing green compositions. Without respirators. Surely some barium is in the air - probably more than what you would have in the pyrotechnic fabrication process if you're careful with moving fine powders around. Perhaps the smoke would contain mostly BaO, but that would still be bioavailable - as well as caustic. Also, as for being pedantic about cleanup of leftovers / tools, does it really make sense if your going to release 99.99% of what you were working with to the environment in your pyrotechnic devices? Nothing to you of course. I just don't get it! I would be inclined to have a MgSO4 bath to clean tools in before doing further cleaning down a drain. Though Id be concerned the BaSO4 would precipitate firmly onto the tools and be a pain to get off. As for chlorates, I work with them a lot. I don't intend to persuade anyone go about using them without caution, because you definitely need to know what you are doing. However, I believe its incompatibility is falsely preached through simply retweeting things not based in fact as well as people coming to some sort of conclusion when they don't have pure chemicals to deal with. Maybe that charcoal, or so you thought, actually contained a little sulfur. Maybe that chlorate, or so you thought, contained a little bleach because it wasn't purified well. It definitely has its incompatibilities, but I wouldn't go as far to say that it is incompatible with nearly everything.
My thoughts too! I have always wanted to make green fire but been afraid of the toxicity of Ba(NO3)2, yet I use regular sparklers all the time for igniting mixtures which is thermate, containing Ba(NO3)2.
You can use pure chlorates with pure sulfur. What is an absolute no no is chlorates with ammonium compounds. Those accidents with KClO3 in the 19th century were usually due to the use of impure sulfur and/or ammonium compounds with KClO3. You can't compare it to the purity of today's chemicals.
@@francisdec1615 I disagree with this statement. Yes, purity is a factor for sure, but sulfur still dramatically lowers the sensitivity of chlorate compositions to the point that even a little friction/shock will set them off. As an experiment, take a match head sized amount of chlorate and sulfur, mix them well, and put them on a hard, smooth surface, then rub it lightly with something like the head of a hammer. You will hear a ton of cracks/pops as the chlorate violently decomposes. If you hit the same mixture lightly with the hammer, it will explode like a firecracker. This is actually a little unsafe because it can shatter the head of a hammer if it's cheap, but the point is that just because purer chemicals have lowered the risk of spontaneous ignition doesn't mean that the sensitivity is not still a huge concern.
About thermate, I find it very strange that having excess oxidizer would improve performance. My testing with thermite shows that having too little oxidizer performs better than having too much. Adding a bunch of barium nitrate to the Al that is already satisfied with Fe2O3 seems wrong. How could it possibly make it perform better? Similar with the addition of sulfur. I tested 19g of thermite +1g of sulfur and it just made it burn too fast and vastly reduced the damage it did to the test plate under it. Perhaps 1g (5%) is too much?
The mixture at 4:42, is it possible to replace barium nitrate with it's carbonate or sulfate? Have you ever tried using boron compounds instead of barium for making green?
The carbonate might work to an extent but the color will likely not be as vibrant. The sulfate will almost certainly not work at all - barium sulfate is tricky to use as a green colorant. I talk about boron a bit at the beginning - the problem with boron is that a lot of boron salts are fairly non-flammable and in fact many boron compounds are used to make fire-proofing materials. That said, a little bit of boric acid in some formulas goes a long way, and you can see in some of the formulas I show at the beginning that a little residual boric acid really adds to the green produced by some compositions. It's a very fine line to walk though since too much boron will result in a composition that hardly burns at all.
@@pyrophoria2206 Speaking of thermite, here is an interesting document of various mixes assuming you haven't encountered it already. losangelesgunstores.com/Pyrotechnic/Pyrotechnic_Chemicals/A_Survey_of_Combustible_Metals,_Thermites,_and_Intermetallics_for_Pyrotechnic_Applications.pdf I eagerly tried Al+MoO3 and Mg+B2O3, but they were both crap. :(
The best green is barium chlorate and shellac/red gum/phenolic resin, maybe with a little metal fuel. For stars it would be something like: barium chlorate 83, red gum 12, dextrin 5 or barium chlorate 74, magnalium or dichromated (must be!) magnesium 10, red gum 12, dextrin 4.
It's more hygroscopic and less "punchy" in practice, so while I'm sure it would burn, it might note be as violent as thermate. My next video is actually on exotic thermites - it's just taking me forever to finish it because I've been so busy.
@@pyrophoria2206 Exotic thermites, how exotic are we talking? SiO2, Bi2O3 and AgO or the _real_ exotic (and painfully expensive) stuff like Y, L, Ta, WO3, I2O5?
@@pyrophoria2206 Looking forward to see it. I tried Al and Bi2O3 small scale and it resulted in a ton of yellow smoke and a soft explosion. I tried Al+I2O5 as well which resulted in white Light, lots of purple smoke and the smell of iodine. It's destructive performance against an Al plate was practically worthless.
@@JoakimfromAnka Bi2O3/Al can function as a high explosive if the particle size is small enough, that's essentially the crux of my next video. It behaves very similar to flash powder if the particles are larger (blackhead Al and ~325 mesh Bi2O3) and it will absolutely self-contain if the pile is large enough. They yellow "smoke" you saw is a mix of bismuth vapor and vaporized Bi2O3.
I use barium nitrate for flashpowder its the best u are incorrect about the barium nitrate flashpowder its not at all that instabile whit aluminium actually pretty stabile
Anyone else show up because this chemical is used in an old WW2 Japanese blue tracer formula and would like to see how feasible it is to recreate it. No, just me... Ok cool
It's a bad idea to touch barium salts with bare hands for a few reasons - namely that your skin is very porous and textured at the microscopic level so the compounds can get embedded in such a way that washing hands (even with MgSO4) may not be sufficient to remove them. Additionally, since barium nitrate is very soluble, it could theoretically absorb directly into the bloodstream through your skin. There is debate about how much of a risk this actually is, and I personally prefer to just use gloves rather than risk it. This is general practice across chemistry and there's no reason to take unnecessary risks when gloves are such an easy form of PPE.
@@pyrophoria2206 sorry I was unclear in my question. I was implying that you would be wearing gloves like in the video. Stick yiur fingers with water proof gloves on in the mgso4 solution. Thanks anyway for an unnecessarily elaborate answer. ;)
@@JoakimfromAnka No worries - you can definitely do that and it might actually be a good idea to do so rather than sending gloves contaminated with soluble barium to a landfill!
“are you using chlorate” “yes” “you’re an idiot”. this made me laugh so hard. but really though i’ve made flash with chlorate before, only like 7 grams which is still very powerful but i would like to see some replies. is chlorate and aluminum 70/30 as dangerous as they say? even with the binary method? i feel like if you handle it with respect it can be handled properly and safeky
All flash is sensitive and dangerous, but chlorate flash is particularly sensitive. The main reason it's stupid is because potassium perchlorate exists and is so much safer, but if you MUST make chlorate flash then yes, the binary method is best. The big risk with chlorate is contamination/incompatibilities so if you can minimize that then it becomes *more* safe but never truly "safe" IMO. Respect is still definitely required, as you said.
@@pyrophoria2206 I really appreciate the response, that I totally agree with. Perchlorate is said to be much safer. So it makes sense that you should avoid chlorate and sub in kclo4. please make a flash video soon though your content is hilarious and informative!
"In addition to what you do to chemists when they die, barium is a..." That might just be the best sentence I've ever been immediately greeted with upon entering a video.
Your videos are very informative and entertaining. I can't wait to see what else you have planned and to see how your channel grows.
And now a funny story: I accidentally bought myself magnesium and aluminum shavings instead of the powders (and considering I was careless enough to make that mistake, it was a very good thing). The aluminum is pretty much unusable for pyro directly, but the magnesium turned out to be fun with KClO4, as the relatively small surface area and small amounts made it much milder.
Can you provide 2 very easy composition of green and red sparkler ( using only barium and strontium nitrate + Sulphur + pvc ) but not using any kind of chlorate & perchlorate
I do not make sparklers, sorry. Wouldn't know where to start.
Can't wait for the next one! :)
awesome video, it was funny, entertaining, involved pyrotechnics and had a splash of science.
Great video with much in-depth information involving barium in pyrotechnics. I've worked with sodium orange / yellows, strontium reds, and copper blues but have refrained from working with barium as of yet due to its toxicity. What you have here to say definitely makes me further question how exactly to deal with leftovers and cleanup. Still, I'm trying to find a middle ground. On the one hand, barium is preached to be this really nasty animal thats going to easily kill you if you slip up on PPE. On the other, your lighting compositions, be it sparklers, fountains, shells - filled with barium. And guess what? Smoke! And more smoke! It seems like all of a sudden its no longer an issue. People standing around enjoying fireworks, including those containing green compositions. Without respirators. Surely some barium is in the air - probably more than what you would have in the pyrotechnic fabrication process if you're careful with moving fine powders around. Perhaps the smoke would contain mostly BaO, but that would still be bioavailable - as well as caustic. Also, as for being pedantic about cleanup of leftovers / tools, does it really make sense if your going to release 99.99% of what you were working with to the environment in your pyrotechnic devices? Nothing to you of course. I just don't get it! I would be inclined to have a MgSO4 bath to clean tools in before doing further cleaning down a drain. Though Id be concerned the BaSO4 would precipitate firmly onto the tools and be a pain to get off. As for chlorates, I work with them a lot. I don't intend to persuade anyone go about using them without caution, because you definitely need to know what you are doing. However, I believe its incompatibility is falsely preached through simply retweeting things not based in fact as well as people coming to some sort of conclusion when they don't have pure chemicals to deal with. Maybe that charcoal, or so you thought, actually contained a little sulfur. Maybe that chlorate, or so you thought, contained a little bleach because it wasn't purified well. It definitely has its incompatibilities, but I wouldn't go as far to say that it is incompatible with nearly everything.
My thoughts too! I have always wanted to make green fire but been afraid of the toxicity of Ba(NO3)2, yet I use regular sparklers all the time for igniting mixtures which is thermate, containing Ba(NO3)2.
You can use pure chlorates with pure sulfur. What is an absolute no no is chlorates with ammonium compounds. Those accidents with KClO3 in the 19th century were usually due to the use of impure sulfur and/or ammonium compounds with KClO3. You can't compare it to the purity of today's chemicals.
@@francisdec1615 I disagree with this statement. Yes, purity is a factor for sure, but sulfur still dramatically lowers the sensitivity of chlorate compositions to the point that even a little friction/shock will set them off. As an experiment, take a match head sized amount of chlorate and sulfur, mix them well, and put them on a hard, smooth surface, then rub it lightly with something like the head of a hammer. You will hear a ton of cracks/pops as the chlorate violently decomposes. If you hit the same mixture lightly with the hammer, it will explode like a firecracker. This is actually a little unsafe because it can shatter the head of a hammer if it's cheap, but the point is that just because purer chemicals have lowered the risk of spontaneous ignition doesn't mean that the sensitivity is not still a huge concern.
How do you not have more subscribers? You put out really good, educational straight-forward
content
About thermate, I find it very strange that having excess oxidizer would improve performance. My testing with thermite shows that having too little oxidizer performs better than having too much. Adding a bunch of barium nitrate to the Al that is already satisfied with Fe2O3 seems wrong. How could it possibly make it perform better?
Similar with the addition of sulfur. I tested 19g of thermite +1g of sulfur and it just made it burn too fast and vastly reduced the damage it did to the test plate under it. Perhaps 1g (5%) is too much?
The mixture at 4:42, is it possible to replace barium nitrate with it's carbonate or sulfate? Have you ever tried using boron compounds instead of barium for making green?
The carbonate might work to an extent but the color will likely not be as vibrant. The sulfate will almost certainly not work at all - barium sulfate is tricky to use as a green colorant.
I talk about boron a bit at the beginning - the problem with boron is that a lot of boron salts are fairly non-flammable and in fact many boron compounds are used to make fire-proofing materials. That said, a little bit of boric acid in some formulas goes a long way, and you can see in some of the formulas I show at the beginning that a little residual boric acid really adds to the green produced by some compositions. It's a very fine line to walk though since too much boron will result in a composition that hardly burns at all.
@@pyrophoria2206 Speaking of thermite, here is an interesting document of various mixes assuming you haven't encountered it already.
losangelesgunstores.com/Pyrotechnic/Pyrotechnic_Chemicals/A_Survey_of_Combustible_Metals,_Thermites,_and_Intermetallics_for_Pyrotechnic_Applications.pdf
I eagerly tried Al+MoO3 and Mg+B2O3, but they were both crap. :(
Good stuff
Would be nice if you could activate captions for this video too
Cool stuff keep'em coming 👍
The best green is barium chlorate and shellac/red gum/phenolic resin, maybe with a little metal fuel. For stars it would be something like: barium chlorate 83, red gum 12, dextrin 5 or barium chlorate 74, magnalium or dichromated (must be!) magnesium 10, red gum 12, dextrin 4.
NEXT MOVES ARE :
Yellow Fire : Sodium in Pyrotechnics
Orange Fire: Calcium in Pyrotechnics
etc ...
Bro please start making vids again
wonderful info, thank you
5:33 I wonder how thermate based on Sr(NO3)2 would perform. 🤨
It's more hygroscopic and less "punchy" in practice, so while I'm sure it would burn, it might note be as violent as thermate. My next video is actually on exotic thermites - it's just taking me forever to finish it because I've been so busy.
@@pyrophoria2206 Exotic thermites, how exotic are we talking? SiO2, Bi2O3 and AgO or the _real_ exotic (and painfully expensive) stuff like Y, L, Ta, WO3, I2O5?
@@JoakimfromAnka Mid-tier exotic, haha. Primarily focused on bismuth with a lot of in-depth information but plenty of other examples as well.
@@pyrophoria2206 Looking forward to see it. I tried Al and Bi2O3 small scale and it resulted in a ton of yellow smoke and a soft explosion. I tried Al+I2O5 as well which resulted in white Light, lots of purple smoke and the smell of iodine. It's destructive performance against an Al plate was practically worthless.
@@JoakimfromAnka Bi2O3/Al can function as a high explosive if the particle size is small enough, that's essentially the crux of my next video. It behaves very similar to flash powder if the particles are larger (blackhead Al and ~325 mesh Bi2O3) and it will absolutely self-contain if the pile is large enough. They yellow "smoke" you saw is a mix of bismuth vapor and vaporized Bi2O3.
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I use barium nitrate for flashpowder its the best u are incorrect about the barium nitrate flashpowder its not at all that instabile whit aluminium actually pretty stabile
Yeah, I once considered making colored stars(green, blue, red) or KCl04 flashes. But I figured out that I care about my life LAMAO.
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Anyone else show up because this chemical is used in an old WW2 Japanese blue tracer formula and would like to see how feasible it is to recreate it. No, just me... Ok cool
เข้าใจและได้ประโยดมากๆครับขอบคุณครับ🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂
3:32 Could you not just stick your fingers in some water with MgSO4?
It's a bad idea to touch barium salts with bare hands for a few reasons - namely that your skin is very porous and textured at the microscopic level so the compounds can get embedded in such a way that washing hands (even with MgSO4) may not be sufficient to remove them. Additionally, since barium nitrate is very soluble, it could theoretically absorb directly into the bloodstream through your skin. There is debate about how much of a risk this actually is, and I personally prefer to just use gloves rather than risk it. This is general practice across chemistry and there's no reason to take unnecessary risks when gloves are such an easy form of PPE.
@@pyrophoria2206 sorry I was unclear in my question. I was implying that you would be wearing gloves like in the video. Stick yiur fingers with water proof gloves on in the mgso4 solution. Thanks anyway for an unnecessarily elaborate answer. ;)
@@JoakimfromAnka No worries - you can definitely do that and it might actually be a good idea to do so rather than sending gloves contaminated with soluble barium to a landfill!
“are you using chlorate” “yes” “you’re an idiot”. this made me laugh so hard. but really though i’ve made flash with chlorate before, only like 7 grams which is still very powerful but i would like to see some replies. is chlorate and aluminum 70/30 as dangerous as they say? even with the binary method? i feel like if you handle it with respect it can be handled properly and safeky
All flash is sensitive and dangerous, but chlorate flash is particularly sensitive. The main reason it's stupid is because potassium perchlorate exists and is so much safer, but if you MUST make chlorate flash then yes, the binary method is best. The big risk with chlorate is contamination/incompatibilities so if you can minimize that then it becomes *more* safe but never truly "safe" IMO. Respect is still definitely required, as you said.
@@pyrophoria2206 I really appreciate the response, that I totally agree with. Perchlorate is said to be much safer. So it makes sense that you should avoid chlorate and sub in kclo4. please make a flash video soon though your content is hilarious and informative!