Calcium 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 calcium chloride (CaCl2) which has an orange flame.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• sully
• russia
• chem
• chemistry
• lab
• demo
• demonstration
• sci
• science
• flame
• test
• flaming
• burning
• salt
• salts
• 0809
• alcohol
• calcium
• chloride
• color
• colored
• fire
• burn
• wavelength
• light
• excited
• electron
• electrons
• orange
• Ca
• Cl
• CaCl2

[ferencproject]

does this work with CaSO4 (calcium sulfate)?

[mrericsully]

@ferencproject It should- however this demonstration is helped by the fact that the compound dissolves a little in the alcohol and I believe calcium sulfate is less soluble, so it might be harder to notice the flame color.  Also, although it works with hydrated compounds it works better with the dehydrated (or in calcium sulfate's case the less hydrated) compounds [x0 H2O is better than x1/2 H2O is better than x2 H2O].

[Agentoxedo07]

Holy-Terrorist:>*=* calcium chloride(CaCl2) is flammable? ? ?

[mrericsully]

@Agentoxedo07 No, I put some alcohol on it to produce the colored flame.

[mrericsully]

@l33tpwnerz Also, calcium flame tests have been well established as having an orange color through numerous [even countless] tests in the past- it is not like I am making a new claim here or attempting to establish a new fact. I am not doing true experimentation because the outcome is known, instead I am illustrating or demonstrating an established principle here.

[mrericsully]

@l33tpwnerz Because the alcohol's flame is light blue and when starved of oxygen is light yellow. I have also burned solid CaCl2 and it has the same flame color [but there is a difference between being burned and what is classically defined as flammable).

If you'd like to see the video of alcohol burning alone, goto: youtube(dot)com/watch?v=0ka1lE­eSngE

If you'd like to see alcohol compared to calcium chloride goto, youtube(dot)com/watch?v=jJvS4u­c4TbU&feature=relmfu .

[JAKEnFRANCO]

0:04 "hi youtube!" xD