this other than being a pyrotechnic it's
called the death mix there are a number
of different death mixes and they have
that name for very good reason in that
you have to be very careful when you're
handling these chemicals especially when
they're all together November the 5th is
a special celebration day in the United
Kingdom and particularly in England
we're gonna make our own fireworks
because it's come out to bonfire night
here in 1605 on November the 5th there
was a plot to blow up the houses of
parliament when the King James the first
was opening the houses of parliament in
our beaker we've got something very dull
mundane that's charcoal but you need the
charcoal because you're going to add to
it sofa as we're doing here Guy Fawkes
was found in the cellar of the houses of
parliament with a large amount of
gunpowder barrels and barrels and
barrels it was clear that the next day
he was good to try and blow it up what
we're adding as well is something called
potassium chlorate ever since there has
been a celebration on November the 5th
with fireworks I think probably this is
a much older celebration and festival
which somehow has got changed from some
sort of pagan festival into the
celebration of the deliverance of the
king but I'm not sure and November the
5th and usually the two Saturdays on
either side of this people let off a lot
of fireworks and whenever one thinks of
fireworks
of course one thinks about the chemistry
that makes them work because a firework
is after all a fairly controlled
explosion and one that produces dramatic
visual effect usually by including
something that burns or gives out a
bright light in the reaction mixture so
when you use this stuff you have to be
very careful so often people add
transition metal salts like copper that
gives green or sometimes boron that
gives green strontium that gives
red and so on and the final thing I'll
add is the strontium nitrate and if
you've seen our other videos you'll know
what color strontium gives you they also
sometimes put in saucony impaler that
gives very bright sparks as you may have
seen or now video Sam and Neil have got
a strange mixture which I never heard
before in this context which Sam calls
the death the mixture none other than
our silent rogue that is the chemical
stick he's an expert on fireworks and
when I told him that I'd found a
chemical reaction I wanted today the
first thing he said was you're making a
death mix essentially the sulfur is
burning and the potassium chlorate
provides the oxygen my colleague Pete
licence likes to call it bottled oxygen
because it's oxygen a very concentrated
form and as you heat it up it gives out
the oxygen gas which then combines
so essentially you're burning sulfur and
using the heat of this burning this
combustion to vaporize metal salts that
give nice colors it got so hot in the
center of that reaction that it's
actually heated the sheet metal and it's
caused it to slightly indent and Bend
brilliant reaction homemade fireworks as
it were but the best thing about a
chemistry reaction is the repetition
making sure that you can do the same
reaction again and altering it slightly
to make it more interesting so we've
already had red fire let's go for green
this time
do you ever celebrate fireworks night
Guy Fawkes night have you got much of a
history with it or you normally type in
it by then I have done when my children
were younger I used to celebrate it and
so on but being a safety officer I
insisted they wear wore safety glasses
and so on which I think for my poor
children took a bit of a shine of the
event and finally the thing that's going
to give us the green fire and it's
barium nitrate this time when I was at
school the age of about 11 or 12 I was
at a boarding school where I lived at
the school and some of the boys decided
for Guy Fawkes Day they would make a
really big rocket by joining together
lots of different rockets so that this
would be a huge event but unfortunately
they didn't understand enough about the
physics of it so although it was set off
by one of the school teachers because if
children can't have matches it rose in
the air a few feet and then it was just
unstable and crashed to the ground and
stars shot in different directions we
were all watching through the windows
and we were very disappointed because we
thought it would go almost to the moon
oh that's cool hey Brady its Destin over
here in America specifically Alabama we
know a thing or two about bomb fires as
well and while I think it's pretty
awesome that you guys have a specific
day where you have bonfires we do it
pretty much any day we want anyway if
you want to check out how we make
bonfires come check out my channel
smarter every day I'll show you how we
do it with rockets take it easy
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