Making coloured fire... using an oxy-hydrogen torch

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Glflegolas
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Joined: 20 Dec 2016
Age: 26
Gender: Male
Posts: 490
Location: NS, Canada

02 Apr 2019, 6:09 pm

When an artist's canvas is paper, wood, or canvas, it's called art.
When an artist's canvas is superheated plasma, it's called pyrotechnics.
By the title of this thread, I obviously prefer the latter.

About a day ago, I got to play around with an oxy-hydrogen torch, that burns at around 3200 C. I made some solutions of various metal salts, such as NaCl, KBr, Sr(CH3COO)2, CuSO4, and put these solutions into the hot flame. When I did this I got some beautiful colours.

Some of these emission lines, such as Na, K, Li, and Cu, you may have seen in fireworks. Sr can be seen in road flares. But I'm sure you haven't seen all these flame colours. I think they're quite beautiful, myself.

Image


_________________
~Glflegolas, B.Sc.
The Colourblind Country Chemist & Tropical Tracker

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