Mumbles

The term NC lint really refers more to a purity than anything.  It's meant to describe NC in it's pure, unprocessed state.  This is opposed to NC already processed into smokeless powders with additives and such, which would interfere with colors.  One good source tends to be nitrated microcrystalline cellulose.  It burns hotter than normal NC.  It's also much easier to work with.  I don't know if you've ever tried to screen short fibers, but it's a pain.  There are a few patents on these type of compositions.  Typically you can find them by searching for low smoke stars.  I included a couple.

 

http://www.google.co...s/US20070068610

http://www.google.co...2155630A2?cl=en

I think this quote from Davis sums things up nicely.

 

"The products of the burning of black powder have been studied by a number of investigators, particularly by Noble and Abel, who showed that the burning does not correspond to any simple chemical reaction between stoichiometrical proportions of the ingredients."

 

If you look at the analysis of the burning mixture in Davis, something sort of interesting is noticed.  Of the solid products (55.91% of all combustion products), 8.74% is sulfur.  This means approximately 50% of the sulfur in the formula is ultimately unutilized. 

 

If anyone in charge here would like to check, I'd be happy to provide my collection of known IP addresses used by Anyka, Ushie, etc. 

Powdered NC does have some specialty uses in pyrotechnics.  However, how the powder is obtained should be quite obvious if the original poster actually has any idea what these are. 

Too much moisture isn't the problem.  The real problem is staying wet too long.   It's quite easy to cut glitters with 30+% water and have them function perfectly well if you dry them in a reasonable amount of time.  It should be noted that even with the same formula, the effect will be slightly different between cutting, rolling, and pumping. 

 

Also, glitters are particularly sensitive to binding conditions.  Red gum and parlon kill the effect quite well.  I've seen some people have luck with other non-aqueous binders like PVB (I think) and possibly some phenolic resins.  Not all are created equally though.  You'll have to try them out and see what works.  NC will probably affect the glitter phenomenon as well.  Forming the sprizels is surprisingly touchy. 

Oh, sorry.  I probably should include stuff like that. 

 

After rewatching just now, I think I misinterpreted some things last time.  If you're going to fill the cavities like that, you need to just fill them and leave it.  If you keep stirring and shaking everything around until all the comp you add settles into the holes you get the randomly sized stars that he gets.  I didn't realize how far the pegs go through the plate the first time, so I think I was initially thinking he had some extremely short stars, when in reality they were just the pegs.  Toward the end when he's pumping individual comets, the composition is extremely overwet.  Given the amount of crumbles on his drying screen show that he's either being too rough with the stars, or his composition isn't properly wet, or that he isn't pressing them hard enough.  I'm also not a big fan of him not giving credit for that formula (which isn't new or his).  Additionally the rest of his channel includes videos of other people's shells, which he claim as his, which kind of rubbed me the wrong way. 

The real fact that some miss is that using paris green in a chlorate comp does not require external chlorine donors to produce a nice blue, where as some other salts do. Argue all you want, but barring the use of something like sulfur in the formula, most chlorate colors will benefit from some additional external chlorine donor. PG blues are good on their own, and are only marginally improved by the addition of something else. PG blues seem to derive some of their mythical properties from the fact that they seem to make the blue colorant on it's own.

There is some postulation that arsenic does not transfer chlorine to the copper atom, rather a copper acetate is the blue emitter that is produced. This is supported, at least in part, by the fact that copper arsenite makes a relatively poor blue color when used in analogous formulas. Some have reported noticing an odor of acetic acid down wind of a blue lance set piece. Why you'd stand down wind of an arsenic containing composition is beyond me. Copper acetate on it's own is undesirable as it is hygroscopic and water soluble. It would be interesting seeing how some other ancillary ligands on copper acetate to make it insoluble might work.

As far as the lack of success of realgar, it's possible that the chlorine cannot replace sulfur in a flame with ease. The arsenic sulfur interaction is significantly more favorably than that of arsenic and chlorine. This would in general hamper the action of chlorine transfer. There is also some other postulation generated from the major blue emission lines of arsenic. This would in a sense have some synergistic effects on blue only and no other colors, or would at least be largely over powered.

I think most plausibly at least some of the lore of paris green originates from the fact that it has some fuel value of it's own. This allows one to include a larger percentage of the copper containing component. While this does not allow you to get a larger percentage of copper as a whole into the composition, there seems to be some benefit to having the metal atom of choice directly involved in the reaction vs. just being a subsequently excited secondary component. This can be seen in the somewhat recent surge in metal fueled stars relying upon strontium and barium nitrates or carbonates as primary or at least partial oxidizers. Also over the initial excitement of copper benzoate.

Here is the synthesis I have. Strontium can probably be substituted for the barium.


Barium Peroxide

Preparation: Prepare a solution of 47g of barium chloride dihydrate in 250ml water. To this solution add 250ml 30% H2O2. Add 200ml 24% aqueous ammonia solution with stirring. Let the mixture stand until no more precipitate forms. Decant the clear portion, and replace the liquid with fresh water. Repeat the decanting 2-3 times. Filter on a Buchner funnel and wash with water. Dry in a porcelain cup at 50-70°C, occasionally spreading the powder with a spatula. After the product turns into a crumbly mass, increase the temperature to 75-80°C. Store the completely dried product in a tightly sealed bottle. Yield: 55-60g of the octahydrate. The product can be further dried to the hemihydrate at 130°C. The completely anhydrous peroxide can be obtained above 200°C, but a partial loss of oxygen will occur.