How to create Colored Flames

by Abhishek Jha

I remember when I was a kid, as I tended the wood stove to warm the house I would rummage through my old Nintendo Power magazines looking for colorful pages in attempt to change the flames hue. It was no doubt a young child's early footsteps to a pyromania lifestyle. Though, my career as a fire magician was pretty hit and miss until one Chemistry class my teachers "project" was The Method of Coloring Fire. As you can imagine, I was quite excited.

Many years later, it was one of the few things from school that stuck. I now share my knowledge with you.

Preparation
In order to get great results you will need to prepare your colorants with either Pinecones or Sawdust. If you try to mix your colorants without these materials you will most likely get a regular orange-yellow hue. And that's no fun.

Do the following steps separately for each color:

Fill a bucket with water. Enough to completely soak your sawdust or pinecones. (Skip step 2 if you purchased your colorants in liquid form)
Mix your colorant in until fully dissolved. If you are using sawdust, try adding some liquid glue. It will allow the sawdust to stick together.
Add your pinecones or sawdust to the mixture. Create an even coat. Let the materials soak in the mixture overnight or for several hours.
Set the pieces out to dry for several hours.
Place on something safe. I suggest placing it on something you are going to throw out after the experiment.
Light afire!

Note: Do not light it using a BBQ flame. While it will produce results, the chemicals you are using will taint the grill and cause your food to be toxic.

Note: Instead of water, you may also use alcohol for easy burning.

Flame Colorants

Lithium Chloride	Carmine
Strontium Chloride	Red
Calcium Chloride (Bleaching Powder)	Orange
Sodium Chloride (Table Salt)	Yellow
Borax	Yellow/Green
Copper Sulfate (Hair Dye)	Green
Copper Chloride	Blue
3 parts Potassium Sulfate/1 part Potassium Nitrate	Violet
Potassium Chloride	Purple
Magnesium Sulfate (Epsom Salt)	White

Why?
Coloring flame is done by dissolving salts (metal compounds such as sodium chloride) in a solvent which also acts as the fuel. When the fuel burns, it also causes the metal ions to emit on their characteristic wavelengths (just like the flame color tests in chemistry).

6 Comments

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Tatjana Miriam Hasse – Fri, 04 Apr 2008 20:48:21 -0000

Nice introduction, nice fotos, nice typing, nice (little :)) text - what a nice lesson, Adam!

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Krista – Wed, 11 Jun 2008 14:32:41 -0000

cool!

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Smita – Sat, 28 Jun 2008 08:41:42 -0000

cool

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Heather Craig – Fri, 11 Jul 2008 20:19:03 -0000

While i was camping this past week a girl had a package that, when tossed in the fire, produced a really neat green and blue flames. Has anyone ever seen these for sale?

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