Experiments in blowing colored sparkley fire.

I've been blowing fire with pyrotechnic chemicals (for color) and metal powders (for sparkle.)

Inspirations

My friend Foo made a pneumatic flame projector, ['Betsy']. The first few fires were with gasoline, but he really caught my attention when he fired a [giant fireball] of methyl alcohol and strontium chloride. It lit up the area with saturated road-flare red for hundreds of yards around. He's started some notes, under PyroExMachina.

An article from Skylighter.com on [Ghost mines] (partway down.) A followup with [pictures!]

Photos

• [Green fire spinning!]
• [Pictures] from the [March 10, 2004] [Dorkbot] at [False Profit]. Anyone have more shots from this night? Please let Mike know by mailing him at meer dot net!
• [Video] from Mike's DorkBot talk.

• [Breathing fire]
• [More fire]
• [Fire at the Ranch]
• [More...]
• [More.]

Chemicals

Some links on health information. In reading each of the following, I figure on absorbing only a small number of milligrams orally; consider that normal doses of lithium carbonate (for bipolar mania) are on the order of 1-2 grams per day. (No swallowing!) I am mostly concerned about problems with chronic doses.

Here's a great government resource for toxicity summaries - ['ATSDR']. Much easier to read than MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheets) which are usually almost entirely boilerplate.

[Mineral Tolerance of Domestic Animals.]

• Strontium chloride - road-flare red
  • [Great overview.]
  • [Integration of strontium into hydroxypatite (bone)]
  • [Park Service on Strontium]
  • [Government fact sheet on Strontium] Mostly Strontium-90, the radioactive isotope everyone's heard about. But this is *only* due to man-made nuclear reactions; it has a half-life of 29 years and doesn't occur naturally.
  • Is it an ingredient in Sensodyne toothpaste? Maybe it's [good for you??]
• Boric Acid - pale green
  • [A comparison of the toxicity of boric acid and table salt]
  • [MSDS]
  • [A slightly alarming discussion of acceptable chronic doses]
  • [Megadosing mice]
• Calcium chloride - tangerine
  • [Biology of calcium.] This is also relevant to strontium, which is biologically almost equivalent.
• Potassium chloride - white/lavender
  • Potassium and calcium chlorides are both natural body electrolytes, but... potassium at least is a cardiac electrolyte; overdoses can stop the heart. The intravenous lethal dose is 10 times less than the oral... but I still would try to avoid swallowing.
• Sodium chloride - banana (really too much like ordinary firebreathing, though...)
• Lithium chloride - fuscia! Nice picture at the LithiumStove page.
  • [Lithium toxicity summary]
  • Great 'Nordic Expert Group' document on [health risks of lithium compounds].
• Copper chloride - green/turquoise
  • [Copper toxicity summary]
  • [Readable copper toxicity summary.]
  • I don't put copper compounds in my mouth.
• Copper acetate - deep green
  • This works (with denatured alcohol) on poi/chains!
• Lamp Oil - Overdone! [Toxicity info.]
• Methonol - NFFB (Not for fire breathing) Methonol Toxicity

Sparkles

Everything comes in different mesh sizes - which make a big difference. It's easier to get lots of smaller stuff up in the air - but bigger particles will billow for half a second after the flame has died out - a great effect. Mixes are good.

• [Magnesium].
  • Magnesium likes to react! It'll pull the oxygen out of water to oxidize itself, creating heat - which can be bad - and hydrogen - which likes to explode. It will slowly oxidize in plain water - leaving hydrogen bubbles. In other situations, it'll oxidize very quickly! It's bad news with boric acid solutions - no sparkles with the lime green. Copper chloride will also catalyze it - I found out the hard way that if it's mixed (dry) with copper chloride hydrate, it reacts vigorously when shaken.
  • Fine magnesium reacts faster.
  • Fine magnesium on skin + liquid soap (before water) = thermal burn. Very strange!
  • Magnesium (and many other metals, especially titanium) will 'go bad' over time; they'll develop an oxide coating and refuse to burn if left open for any time at all, and especially if even a drop of water gets in the container.
  • I've heard (and believe) some concern that powdered Mg may create free radicals in the body. Eat your vitamin C.
• Steel - I need a good shot of this! Branching yellow sparks.
• [Iron].
• [Titanium] Crackly white sparks.
  • Lots of titanium is an alloy that contains vanadium, which is cumulative, turns your tongue green/black, and is bad for you!
• [Carbon]. Floating post-blow [spark-mushrooms].
• Aluminum (A bust. But if it's useful, here's a [health overview.]) I've had some luck with dark aluminum, but no firebreathing data yet.

Sources

• [Skylighter] [Skylighter articles]
• [Firefox-fx]
• ['United Nuclear' - not very good]
• [Bevmo]

Misc

• Some FireBreathingNotes.

Mail me! (Mike) at mcca.be.