As a "because I can" project, I've built a flashy looking flamethrower, and also just because I can, I'm trying to find a way to make it produce equally flashing looking fire.
Currently the system uses methanol as it's fuel, so I'm looking for an additive that will safely give me green flames.

From what I've found, copper sulfate produces a green flame, but will this dissolve in the alcohol enough to make it usable? Or will that even work? I'd prefer not to waste any alcohol if possible so I don't want to use trial and error.
If this does work, what mixture ratio should I use, and where can I find copper sulfate? I understand it's a swimming pool-related chemical, maybe Ace Hardware?


EDIT - Found my answer. Boric acid will react with the methanol to produce methyl borate, a green burning liquid fuel. Feel free to lock the topic or continue discussion as seen fit I guess.

boric acid with methanol for green,
lithium chloride for red..

read this and you should become reasonably educated on the matter:
http://skylighter.com/skylighter_info_pages/article.asp?Item=59

and this :
http://skylighter.com/skylighter_info_pages/article.asp?Item=8

For boric acid ratios, just get your methanol at the temp it will be used at, normally room temp or whatever, then take a shit ton of boric acid powder, and dump it in there, Then, shake it up really good, and then filter or decant the solution, dry your boric acid in the filter for later use, and viola.

It's REALLY fucking green too, good shit. I use it in my fire act. Mainly for fire eating, but I sometimes use it in firespinning too, though not often, I'd like to keep my torch heads nice. It does look badass in spinning though.

And I am sure you know this, but do not get methanol in your mouth. It can cause blindness and a shit load of other equally distasteful side effects including coma and death. Granted, it takes a good amount to die, but still........

And before you say, but stupid noob, you just contradicted yourself, yes, I do that often. It's because I've been doing this kind of thing for so long I understand what risks are acceptable and which ones aren't. When I eat green fire with methyl borate I am very quick with it, and I do NOT inhale, I exhale with my mouth wide open to get all the fumes and residue evaporated. Not something I recommend.

And when I eventually go blind you can all laugh at me.

Just remember that the treatment for methanol poisoning is to ingest ethanol. Greatest treatment ever.

anyone care for a sterno cocktail?

Just remember that the treatment for methanol poisoning is to ingest ethanol. Greatest treatment ever.


Good thing the majority of my shows are at pubs and clubs.

Chainhit,
That website is indeed where I found the info, there's actually a few articles there on the matter. Good stuff.

I also watched a metacafe video where a guy created the mixture from cheap wal-mart shit, and it was saying to only create what you're going to use as it'll "dry out". Is this only if the mixture is left in an open container, or will something happen in a sealed container as well?

stupid noob,
You're nuts man, lol. I honestly built my flamethrower to be ridiculously safe, we're talking rock solid seals and construction. I don't want a fucking drop of the methanol to touch my skin if possible. I'm not going to cry if it does, I just do what I can. Granted, I realize that seems dumb as well, considering the fact we're talking about a flamethrower.

And for anyone wondering, it's nothing spectacular, shoots flames probably 20-30 feet (hard to tell with pure methyl flames). You could throw gasoline in an empty fire extinguisher and pressurize it and probably end up with a better performing one than mine.

Do you mean feet? Because 20-30 yards is a considerable distance.

And also, some of my fire shit:



http://s146.photobucket.com/albums/r248/thestupidnoob/?start=all

Dammit, yeah I meant feet. Original edited.

Those are pretty cool pictures, out of curiosity have you ever had anything go wrong, like catching fire or have part of a staff fly off and nail someone in the face? Heh.

Well anyways I'll be getting to play with this later today. Go me. I'm still interested in the shelf life of methyl borate, so if anyone has kept a quantity of it around for awhile let me know. It's not important, but it'd be nice to keep a prepared bottle of it around so I can just fill up and dazzle at a moment's notice.

it will last indefinatly.

also, i want to make a flame thrower

Its somewhat based on equilibrium...

You have:
3CH3OH + H3BO3 <---> (CH3O)3B + 3H2O
methanol + boric acid <---> trimethyl borate + water

Thats assuming that you are merely adding boric acid to methanol. You don't have to go perfect ratios or anything... as the methanol burns a pretty dim/clear blue by itself and it will readily pick up the green from the methyl borate.

Because the equilibrium goes both ways you will always have some methanol, boric acid, trimethyl borate, and water around... It is possible to distill off the methanol/trimethyl borate though... but its not necessary for a good green.

Copper(II) chloride in methanol + a little dichloromethane is supposed to be a very bright green... but I haven't tried it.... you could do the same and add DCM to methanol/boric acid... but once again I havn't tried it... The mixes with DCM have it present as a chlorine donor... when they burn they give off some HCl fumes... Likewise when borates burn they give off boron compounds of some sort which arn't too good for you either... Just don't do it inside and/or huff the exhaust gases and you should be fine.


In either case be sure to avoid sodium impurities as if they were the devil.

I've caught my face on fire, as well as my clothes in places, and smacked myself with a burning torch head. But lately I've been getting into flame transfers. Where you take a freshly dipped lit torch with just the right amount of fuel on it, and roll it off a body part, and then use that body part to light another torch before it goes out, then I usually eat that torch. So far I've done my pant leg, and my bare arm, I'm not quick enough to do it off my tongue yet, it always goes out.

My worst accident though was when I forgot to shave before a show, my largest fire ball to date was also my worst accident. I have a pic of it, but one frame after that pic, my beard is in flames.

I put my face out in the grass while everyone screamed in horror, and my fire safety stood there and gaped.

It's all good, couple blisters on my nose and cheek. Nothing major. I don't let accidents slow me down. Hell, I've got shrapnel in my hand from fucking with acetone peroxide. Live and learn.

If you let an incident scare you, and give up, then that's no life. You learn from it, and go on.

I've been burned literally thousands of times over the years, doing this, and pyrotechnics and shit. It's no big deal. If you are scared of the fire, you are bound to fuck up. Learn about it, respect it, and it will usually do what you want if you know what you are doing.


Firebreathing IS kind of a bitch though, especially in any kind of windy conditions. Controlling a fireball that big, even if it is for only a second, is some intense shit. That's where the skill comes in, NOT self-immolating.

I think anyone with half a brain will agree with you on the fact that pyrotechnics is inherently going to lead to an accident here and there. There's good reason there's so many saying about "playing with fire", and I've heard of even the most cautious people losing fingers because of unknown variables.

Having said that, I've been fortunately enough to have access to a wide variety of precursors to make more stable primaries than AP. Unfortunately, I really need to start reading up on my chemistry. I'm one of those guys that doesn't necessarily know why a synthesis will work, I just know it does. As anyone who knows better is probably thinking at this point, that's asking for trouble. I realize that. It's also dampening my ability to get innovative with the subject because the best I can do is follow instructions after massive double checking with other sources.
I'm interested just as much in the science as I am the bang, though, so I need to find some good e-books on that.

Really flying off-topic here, but I think it's amazing today how you can find this stuff on the internet. 100, maybe 200 years ago, this knowledge was extremely restricted and you had to know the right people or get lucky to get some of this information. Here's to hoping this access doesn't get restricted anytime soon.

I'll drink to that!

Actually, I won't because I've got my organic chem midterm in two days, and I need to stay sober and awake ... what am I doing here?

also, i want to make a flame thrower

This.

It would be funny to wait in some bushes somewhere with firespitting fluid, and wait for some old lady to walk by and just bust out and spit fire in her face.

It would be funny to wait in some bushes somewhere with firespitting fluid, and wait for some old lady to walk by and just bust out and spit fire in her face.

No! This.


anyway, im pretty sure ive started a bunch of threads involving colors and flames, never really to as big an event as a flamethrower though. but still i found a few useful resources, i googled colored flames and got some burning pinecone thing but it was useful because it gave a bunch of chemicals and their color given when burned, pretty interesting stuff.

but yea, copper chloride is usually burned itself by another flame and thus produces the color. this is what we find on these green flame lighters, if you notice there is a tiny glob of something over the torch of the flame, this glows red hot and turns the blue butane bright green!

so if you had a high heat torch, copper chloride would do ya some good, but dissolving a metal into an alcohol may be a daunting task for just a flamethrower.

uhm you should also try some other colors as well. a bright white flame can be produced by epsom salt dissolved in methanol. and im fairly sure there is purple as well. if i hadnt formatted my drive id give you the link to the pinecone site....


/google
ah yes, a probably better source
http://chemistry.about.com/cs/howtos/a/aa052703a.htm
gives you several chemicals and i believe there sources and colors

good luck!

edit:im sorry its copper sulfate not chloride....i think im not quite sure these things always change constantly and my insomnia isnt working with me ATM

[...]my insomnia isnt working with me ATM
Aye.

Most metallic salts are quite soluble in various solvents. We weren't referring to the solid metal.

Yeah when I first started looking all I could find was information on solids that produce the colored flames, hence my wondering if they'd possibly work if they were fine enough and thrown into a fuel. Afterwards, all I could find was that sodium apparently fucks up everything and makes it yellow, regardless of what you want, but hey I learned a little bit about campfire flames...
But obviously solids don't do me a lot of good, unless I want to be an asshole and make a handheld sandblaster which fires solids through a torch. Hmm...

thats how scientist figure out what stars are made of depending on the colour it burns


potassium burns pink btw

is awaiting pics or some form of coolness

Yeah when I first started looking all I could find was information on solids that produce the colored flames, hence my wondering if they'd possibly work if they were fine enough and thrown into a fuel. Afterwards, all I could find was that sodium apparently fucks up everything and makes it yellow, regardless of what you want, but hey I learned a little bit about campfire flames...
But obviously solids don't do me a lot of good, unless I want to be an asshole and make a handheld sandblaster which fires solids through a torch. Hmm...

Well, that was more of a joke than any form of a plan. Right now my free time is occupied with a gun smithing project. Unfortunately, unless I can find a crowning tool, it might be put on indefinite hold.

Well, that was more of a joke than any form of a plan. Right now my free time is occupied with a gun smithing project. Unfortunately, unless I can find a crowning tool, it might be put on indefinite hold.

Seriously, just bust out and immolate an old lady.

Saint Elmo's fire is green. I saw it in Moby Dick. Lol...