Firework Science Report Chemistry

Firework Science Report
Ruby Zhang
Serendipity can be defined as unplanned happening, “pleasant surprise” (Walpole, 1754) that happened when it is well prepared. However, it happens often in scientific field when doing experiments, and firework is one of them. Fireworks were discovered 2000 years ago when a Chinese cook serendipitously mixed three common kitchen ingredients together. Salt substitute (potassium nitrate), sulfur, and charcoal were heated up by fire creating a colorful flame when burning. The cook did not intend to mix the three kitchen ingredients to produce this product. The cook did not expect the three ingredients to produce this black powder which is now called gunpowder. This discovery of the firework had gained popularity

Flammability is when an object has the ability to burn, catch on fire or combust easily. The main composition and fuel of fireworks is the “black powder” mainly created by the charcoal, is highly flammable. This is because it loses the electrons, released atoms in the oxidizer. The released atoms were then bonded with oxygen to keep themselves stable in the oxidizer. This forms the fuel-oxidizer compound, which can be easily burned with a little amount of energy. When it starts to combust and melt, the explosion starts and the force from the explosion pushes the firework to launch in the air. Heat of combustion helps firework to gain its popularity by creating different color of the firework through different heating energy or temperature when burning different metals. In the flame test different type of metals from different family group are placed on a wood stick and heated by a flame, and they presents different coloring on its flame. This is because different metals have different temperature when heated in the same flame, the wavelength of the light changes as the temperature changes, so the color varies as the type of metal varies. This principle is also used in fireworks. For example, copper produces blue fireworks, barium gives off green fireworks, and calcium produces orange fireworks. Fireworks have a really high melting point, this physical property kept firework to be safe, because if it burned easily in low temperature it can explode and cause safety issues. However, the fuel in the firework will only melt after it was light up by the fire, so we can control the time for it to explodes and go to safe area before