• Question: How do you make homemade fireworks?

    Asked by Ciaran McL to Neil, Anne, Florence, Mark, Sinead on 13 Nov 2015. This question was also asked by Odhrán.
    • Photo: Neil Day

      Neil Day answered on 13 Nov 2015:

      Hi Ciara McL -I think I’ve given the impression that I’m a bit of budding pyrotechnician, which I’m not.
      I do really enjoy fireworks as they are chemistyr in it’s most entertaining form and it was the first thing i wanted to do when I became interested in chemistry.
      Basically a firwork is made with something to provide a spark, a fuel such as gunpowder. a tube to contain it and then the interesting part, which is to provide the colour or visual element. different elements burn with different flames;
      Alumniuim and magnesium burn with a white flame
      Copper is blue
      Barium is green
      etc
      so you can design them to do lots of different things visually.
      I should also add that anyone handling and making fireworks needs to be trained and qualified. they also need to be made in safe spark free environments. Therefore making them at home is not recommended..leave to the professionals!

    • Photo: Sinead Balgobin

      Sinead Balgobin answered on 17 Nov 2015:

      Please don’t make homemade fireworks! There’s a reason the phrase “playing with fire” refers to a bad situation.

      That said, fireworks are still really interesting! They usually consist of a cardboard tube with gunpowder, fuel (usually carbon black, sugar or starch) and a fuse. To make the colours, you have a choice of elements:

      Aluminium – silver/white (used in sparklers)
      Barium – green
      Calcium – orange
      Copper – blue
      Lithium – red
      Magnesium – blue
      Sodium – yellow
      Strontium – red
      Zinc – blue

      We also use these colours to help us identify elements in the flame test.

    • Photo: Florence McCarthy

      Florence McCarthy answered on 18 Nov 2015:

      Ciaran, this is a really bad idea – the nature of fireworks is to be explosive and while they are beautiful to watch, they must be handled by an expert (and that’s even before they are made). There have been too many examples of bought fireworks going wrong that to make your own would be insane.

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