Chemistry of Pyrotechnics

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Pyrotechnics have had a million different uses in our civilization. The ancient Chinese used them in their battles against the invading Mongolian hordes. During the gold rush, miners used dynamite to blow up rock that was in the way of their treasure. Today we use this chemical for construction, destruction, in the military, and well, fireworks! The rockets that landed in Baghdad follow the same basic recipe used by the ancient Chinese thousands of years ago.

The word pyrotechnics refers to the art, craft and science of fireworks. As such, it is related to a variety of arts and sciences - as an underdeveloped art, it is nevertheless comparable to many other human arts, such as music, theatre and film; as a science, it attempts to understand and quantify the chemical and physical phenomena that characterise pyrotechnic reactions.

As a craft and art, pyrotechnics originated around 1st century AD in China, with the invention of black powder. As a science, however, pyrotechnics is quite young.

If it wasn't for these advances in chemistry, we may have never been able to land on the moon or explore space. One of the more common products of this invention is the gun. The gun has shaped the history of man unlike any other instrument. Now whether rockets and guns are good things or bad things in your mind, it must have taken a great deal of ingenuity to formulate these creations, ingenuity that started thousands of years ago.

The day will be most memorable in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival…It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade…bonfires and illuminations (fireworks) from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forevermore.

So wrote John Adams on July 3, 1776 to his wife after the Continental Congress had decided to proclaim the American colonies independent of England. Fireworks were associated with Independence Day celebrations even before the signing of the Declaration. The discovery of gunpowder and the invention of the first fireworks (bamboo cases or rolled paper tubes filled with explosives) are traditionally credited to the Chinese, although India is also a likely source.

The majority of firework effects you see today are based on modern discoveries in chemistry and the underlying physics. A good example is the development of the myriad of colors used in the modern firework display. Before the 1800s, only yellow and orange flames could be worked into fireworks.

These colors were produced with steels and charcoal in the various stars, shells and fountains. A common mixture of the day would include both these elements with some sort of binder and a sprinkling of other materials. Chlorates, discovered in the late 1700s and commonly used in industrial applications thereafter, added red and green to the fireworks' cabinet.