Gilded

I actually burned some yesterday with sugar, and even when the chlorate was impure, big chunks, it burned quite long and well with a nice purple flame.

Oooooh... Right. That conversation reminded me of a certain Friends-episode.

So, if I had some methyl orange/blue and boric acid, that's all I need?

Hmm... I think bud had a red-shaded liquid when he made it, it's just dye I guess. Now you should boil it until there's just about 0,2dl left and see if the chlorate has started to form.

Umm, does it give off the flame WHEN you dissolve it, or when you burn the mixed solution? Even though, a burn from a green flame is more cool than a burn from a basic flame, but I think I wouldn't like that.

If they sell non-coloured matches in Slovenia, you should use them (I used green ones, and I think the dye is the main reason for the chlorate's impurity). Also, if you see lots of yellow stuff forming on the surface of the liquid, you might want to filter it again because that's sulfur and stuff. And if you have pyro grade aluminum powder, and a ball mill or something to grind the chlorate into fine powder, you might want to test if you can make flash powder of it in a ratio of 7 chlorate / 3 aluminum (by weight). Magnesium powder should work fine, too. Btw, if you can replace aluminum with magnesium in a flash powder mix, could you replace aluminum with magnesium in a thermite mix?

Well, matter is just energy in a different form really.

Pull a David Hahn and construct your very own breeder reactor! Or then don't. A good experiment is always an experiment that has something to do with explosives, however. I recommend the isolating KClO3/O4 from match heads, then burning the potassium (per)chlorate with sugar, it's an easy one, and lots of fun. Edit: Wow, those sound extreme! Maybe that KClO3-thing isn't enough... Why don't you get some iodine crystals and make them into nitrogen tri-iodide with ammonia. When it's dry, it's a high explosive that can be set off with a touch of a feather! Be careful with it though, it throws iodine vapor all over the place.

Heh, when I left 9th grade I had only B (or 9) English, though the teacher was an asshole. However, I had A chemistry and physics. :>

I would probably need tons of mushrooms to get a visible amount of cesium-137. Edit: Thank God cesium-137 doesn't stay in the body as long as let's say strontium-90. Strontium goes in to the bone marrow and then just sits there happily irradiating your tissues (much like radon which decays into a metal particle when it's in your lungs).

Luckily, Finland has just about the best cancer treatments in the world, so it kind of compensates for the radioactivity levels. And thanks for complimenting my English, I even made a "my hobby - chemistry" essay for my English course and got a 10 (or A) as a grade for it. More about the radioactivity: Thanks to Chernobyl, some Finnish mushrooms still have so much cesium-137 in them that they are too contaminated to be exported! And if you actually want to compare the levels, the worst zones of Finland have 0,27 microsieverts/hour. Luckily I live in a 0,09 zone. After Chernobyl, at one point, the rate was 5 microsieverts/hour. Goddammit. And they are building new nuclear power plants here all the time! I think we have four right now, which is quite a lot for such a small country. Great, more nuclear waste. Edit: Lol! I found a chart, that represents cesium-137 amounts in milk (Bq/l) here. Talk about nasty levels during Chernobyl.

Ok let me put down some facts about Finland, now that someone actually asked: We HAVE TO learn English AND Swedish (our other national language, sadly). After you turn 18, you must within few years go to A) non-military service (for about 8 months) B) army (minimum 8 months) C) jail (I don't know how long, probably a year or something, but it's a long time to be someone's jail biatch ) Our base rock is FILLED with uranium; An average American person gets about 5-10 times less radiation a year than an average Finn. These are the reasons I'm going to get the hell out of here as soon as I can.

Doesn't magnesium produce a bright light effect with a lesser *boom*, and aluminum a less-bright effect with more *boom*?

I'm not a huge fan of football either, I'd rather watch a firework display or an atomic test. Or grass growing. Firecrackers eh? I think my friend's dad (who is a farmer of some sort) has some old big Chinese salute-type fireworks that were withdrawn from the market because they were so dangerous. I'm not sure though, can't remember if I blew them all up with my friend a long time ago. :/ If you want examples of firecrackers and such I recommend http://people.howstuffworks.com/fireworks.htm. A lot of useful info there.

Umm, doesn't potassium chlorate/perchlorate + aluminum powder make flash powder in a ratio of about 7/3?

Hmmh, if they would be small things... I received a letter with about 20 A4-size leaflets from UK about a month or something ago, it had about £2 worth of stamps, so I guess it isn't too much for EU-area, even with big deliveries. Edit: My dad's a fan of Manchester City (which is kind of sad because of their recent game scores), so maybe I'll drop by in the near future to pay and collect my stuff.

Thulium is a must for every element collector; it's probably the most useless naturally occurring element! It's expensive and has very little use. :>

If you have a good camera/video camera, why don't you record burning some and upload it. I would like to see how good it really is. And for the chlorate, don't bother; I've never seen it on eBay, it's highly regulated and I don't think it can even be sent by mail. "how much would the ordering charge be from america to england be because there are some really cheap and i mean cheap equipment there" Why don't you e-mail them? It's quite dependant on weight (duh), or that's what they told me. It can be rather expensive, but if you're planning to order a lot of stuff then it's probably worth it. And hey, if you'd like to, we could make some arrangement of you ordering something and then sending it to me and me sending you the money for it and a bit of extra... uhh, well, think about it.

I bet it would be an effective trick to throw some barium chlorate to a campfire. It would probably scare the living $hit out of people.

Yeah, I laughed my ass off when I first saw the pic. If I were you, I'd probably spend all my money on the stuff they got there. :| Edit: jsatan, I think it makes a mild shade of green. The chlorate should make a REALLY green flame.

"a good site for finding pyrophoric compounds is http://www.unitednuclear.com" I think that site has been mentioned about 30 times within the last two days.

Well, barium nitrate can be used to produce a green flame. Barium chloride or chlorate is way better, though. The chlorate is like the king of green flames. "You can buy nitric acid here in the UK." OK that's it! I'm coming over!

Hmm, didn't you want a condenser to make nitric acid and stuff? If you don't mind ordering from USA, United Nuclear (surprise, surprise) has Graham condensers and other lab glassware for sale.

Barium nitrate is cool, but I would sell my other kidney for 250g of barium chlorate.

Maybe you can spare a few grams of KNO3 for a poor man when I come to England.