Zinc and Sulfur Burn Tests

I added some sulfur to my KNO3/zinc mix, and that led to it being flame sensitive. Nothing special there, just slow burning and a boring flame.

I then went onto the zinc and sulfur.

The first batch I made had quite a bit of sulfur in it. The mix looked kinda yellow/white/gray. It was flame sensitive but just kinda burned up pretty slowly. It did have quite a nice blue/green color to it, and was spitting and sparkling. A nice show.

I whipped up some more, using more zinc this time. It had a darker grey color to it. So i lit off about a tsp of this, and it went off extremely quickly with a nice blue/green flash and a cloud. That's more like proper flash powder.



The next thing to do was test this confined. So I took the rest of the second batch, shoved it into a film canister, fused it, and taped down the lid so it wouldn't just pop off. Now my problem was that the fuse hole was a tad too big, and I thought that it would still explode. Alas it didn't. I should have glued up the fuse hole.

But the effect that did happen was better. The fuse burned down, and I thought it had gone out. Well I was smart enough not to go near that, so I waited. I only had to wait a few seconds for a little pop, followed by quite an amazing sight. It was a thin blue/green fountain about 5-10 feet high that had a nice roaring sound and sparks flying out to the sides and about 15-20 feet up. Bear in mind that this is just out of a film canister.

The one thing is, there is always a lot of blue residue left over. I can only assume this to be zinc sulfide.

Seeing as how the reaction equation is Zn + S --> ZnS, the logical ratio would be 67% Zn and 33% S by weight - judging solely by molar ratios. That's a 1:1 molar ratio. I'll have to actually test that.

Zinc/sulfur mix burning at night

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