Fireworks Fun!

Freedom Over Texas at Eleanor Tinsley Park | Photo courtesy of the Mayor's Office of Special Events

---

Fireworks have been astounding audiences throughout the globe for hundreds of years, and if the pictures above are some signs, This year's presentations are sure to be equally as magnificent as decades past. By several accounts, fireworks were considered to scare away bad spirits. The invention of fireworks led to the invention of pyrotechnic weaponry not the other way around. Sometimes between 600 and 900 C.E., Chinese alchemists inadvertently mixed saltpeter with sulfur and charcoal, unintentionally stumbling upon the primitive chemical recipe for gunpowder. On a darker note, there is accounts of fireworks being strapped to rats to be used in medieval warfare. 

---

A firework requires three components: a fuel an oxidizer and a chemical mixture to produce the color. In case of early fireworks, saltpetre was the oxidizing ingredient that drove the reaction, as British scholar Roger Bacon figured out in the early 1200's . Firework colour concoctions are comprised of metal elements. China might have invented the fireworks, but Italy invented the airborne shell. Contemporary Fireworks screens use aerial shells, which resembles ice cream cones. Today, the form that the firework creates is a product of the interior anatomy of the airborne shell or rocket. While Marco Polo did return with fireworks, some argue that the Europeans were vulnerable to gunpowder weaponry a little earlier throughout the Crusades. 

---

Boom. Hiss. Some firework recipes consist of sound elements. As each layer burns off, it releases a gas, making the whistling sound associated with most firework rockets. Given their ingredients, it is sensible that fireworks aren't as ideal for the environment. Exploding a firework releases heavy metals, dioxins, perchlorates along with other air pollutants to the air, and these pollutants have a serious health effects in high doses. Again, given their components, it is probably not too surprising that recycling burst fireworks is not an option. If you're attempting to dispose of unused fireworks, it is a fantastic idea to call them as well, as most have specific disposal procedures for explosives. 

---

Do not worry, chemists are developing more eco-friendly firework recipes. The work is aimed at creating more eco-friendly flares for army use, but may also be implemented to civilian fireworks. Some fireworks which use nitrogen abundant compounds instead of perchlorates have been utilized in displays, but the challenge is creating friendly products as inexpensive as choices. Americans have been putting off fireworks to celebrate their independence since 1777, at least. Some of the very early Freedom Day celebrations included fireworks.



Click here to check out more blogs from Elite Fireworks.