“how come we don’t see more colored flames”

Because the chemicals you need to make colours are usually quite expensive and hard to find. Sad but true.

omg, no way! this is soooo awesome! have the professionals figured out how to do this yet? i have never seen this before, ever. i didn’t even think this was possible! unless he’s a witch…
/ Burn him!
// with his own magical colored flames!

It’s not that simple…. Yes the coloring agents are expensive because they have to be capable of dissolving in alcohol. Alcohol its self will burn blue and yellow. This is from the sodium present in almost anything around us. To burn clear and clean you need methyl alcohol. There are only a few things you can dissolve in this that will produce color. Like the lithium chloride and copper chloride. It’s also worth pointing out that the amount of copper chloride he used in his shot would cost about .35 per each 2oz shot. So expensive is relative…

All in all… 10/10 geeky project!

We’ve used a copper pipe pinched closed at one end with holes drilled in it. Plop that in a camp fire with the open end out in the cooler air and you’ll get green flames. its reusable too. The effect isn’t as dramatic as this, but its enough to amuse people at a camp out.

It’s difficult to dissolve inorganic salts like chlorides, oxides or nitrates in organic solvents.
Better settle for organic esters like the beautiful green burning Trimethyl borate. It’s easy to synthesize, too.

could the chemicals not be injected into the flame in powder form rather than trying to mix it into the alcohol? that way you can switch colours at will… (This may have already been answered in the video’s, but i’m in work and can’t watch them)

question, where do you put the solution?? inside the tank or poured over the pvc fitting??

also isn’t there yellow teflon tape that’s used specifically for gas, I guess it shouldn’t matter since it’s just air from the compressor…

This project’s big daddy:

http://thegee-gnomeproject.blogspot.com/2009/07/blue-flame.html

They mix a solution of methanol and coloring agents (lithium, copper chloride, etc) in a large (10+ gallon it seemed) container, and pushed it through the line with pressurized nitrogen, resulting in a 50-foot-high colored flame.

Yea RGB, a tank with red colourant, one with blue and one with green, pipe them all through the same nozzle, control the amount of each and any coloured flame you want (in theory.)

The pros have been aware of this for a long time, but have a hard time doing anything with liquid fuels; fire marshalls don’t allow it, NFPA code doesn’t allow it, and experience dictates a healthy fear of liquid fuel. Vapor is much safer, but more difficult to color. Also the expense lies not in the coloring agents but in the hardware required to handle methanol; stainless steel costs maybe 10x as much. Methanol eats aluminum, coloring salts corrode steel. It’s more challenging than it looks.