Barium Chloride Flame Test

This is the '08-'09 school year's flame test demonstration. It went better than last year's demonstration (I have 3 videos of those on YouTube), but not as good as my first year's still (I have 7 of those videos [e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJvS4uc4TbU]. The flame test is preformed by burning a metal salt using a flammable liquid. Each chemical (in this case metal ion) gives off a characteristic color (seen here as changes in colors of the flames) when the electrons fall back down from their excited state and emit light at certain wavelengths (colors). This year I decided to do something different and filmed each salt individually.
An alcohol is used to burn all of these salts, this one is barium chloride (BaCl2) which has a yellow-green flame.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• sully
• russia
• chem
• chemistry
• lab
• demo
• demonstration
• sci
• science
• flame
• test
• flaming
• burning
• salt
• salts
• 0809
• barium
• chloride
• color
• colored
• fire
• burn
• wavelength
• light
• excited
• electron
• electrons
• yellow
• green
• dirty
• brown
• faint
• pale
• alcohol
• BaCl2
• Ba
• Cl

[joejacksonriley]

There is no way that is barium.

[mrericsully]

@joejacksonriley I have tested the material using a more traditional flame test method (putting powder on nichrome wire and directly into flame) and it is certainly barium. The results here are some kind of interaction with the alcohol and the alcohol itself burning being the main color of the flame you see. Also see my other replies below.

[zkvattram]

theres no way thats barium it most be polluted by natrium

[mrericsully]

It is not polluted by sodium (Na), but the alcohol here really masks the flame.

[mrericsully]

f you wait until ):48 and look on theright there is a color change that is the barium. It then becomes more visible after that, I have always described barium as a dirty yellow or yellow-green. The yellow-green matches the literature. Having said all of that what I see here on "film" doesn't look as colorful as what I'v seen live, so it might be a shortcoming of my camera.

[qrais]

Barium is actually pale yellowish green color, so it is completely possible for it to be more on the yellow-side than the green.

[rpraza4]

That is DEFINITELY barium. Its color is supposed to be the color on the right side of the flame at 0:32. A good thing to try would be put it in a solution, about .5-1M, and burn it into an open flame, using HCl to sterilize the thing youre using to get the solution into the fire