The Chemistry Of Fireworks

Fireworks are an established part of many festivities as entertainment, including Independence Day, community festivals, social gathering, and overall celebration, but also were used as weaponry by Chinese. (Helmenstine, Anne Marie)

Fireworks need a source of combustible substance like metals. Metals are used in compounds or in their initial form to give color to fireworks. Therefore, they will glow when energy is applied. This occurs by 2 ways. By incandescence or known as when the light is emitted by burning chemical compounds or elements producing color. Or adjusting the temperature of burning metals generating red, orange, yellow, and white sparks, similarly like how we can control the color of a stove burner by raising the heat. When

The oxidizer rearranges the chemical bonds in the fuel, releasing all the accumulated energy located in the bonds. To provoke this chemical reaction, you need a form of heat energy. (Thompson, Helen) However, since this is a chemical reaction the reactants forming the product cannot be reversed.

A fuel is created by metal or metalloid powder, or black powder, a form of gunpowder a combination of sulfur, charcoal and potassium nitrate. (Helmenstine, Anne Marie)

An oxidizer which is combining or becoming combined chemically with oxygen element or compounds. Oxygen is frequently located in chlorate, perchlorates, and nitrates. (Helmenstine, Anne Marie)

A combustible compound or element. Each color is produced due to the substance they use.

Red Strontium salts, Lithium salts

Orange Calcium salts

Yellow Sodium compounds

Electric White Magnesium or Aluminum or Barium

Fireworks is perhaps the best way to commemorate a significant day. Negative effects of fireworks on civilization implicate unsafe behavior when managing with firework equipment. Every year there is an incensement in a number of injuries and burns. UV light emitted from fireworks is intense enough to affect your eyes in just a few seconds of exposure. Fireworks don't emit an extensive amount of UV, so that hazard isn't there. However, it is a large amount of visible light caused to be uncomfortable to people. But no permeant damage occurs. This is the same situation that occurs when a flashlight is shone in your eyes for few seconds. No permanent damage occurs. But one thing to keep in mind is fireworks have been the cause of many serious accidents such as burns and occasionally deaths. Researchers have discovered in Kingston hospital; the staff urges citizens to be “careful when handling sparklers as it can cause many burns and fingertip injuries”. In 2012, 8,700 citizens injured themselves using fireworks and in 2013, that count raised to 11,300 people. (Thompson, Helen) Fireworks are known to cause a lot of noise pollution and can be harmful to your hearing due to the excessive amounts of sound generated. (Fireworks: The Pros and