teflon and magnalium based flash powder

I rescued a teflon coated pan from being thrown away and scraped of some of the teflon. When I mixed it with MgAl in a ratio that "looked right" and lit a small bit of it, it gave a mild "BOOF" and made a smoke ring. I was impressed enough to weight out ingredients and develope a good mixture based on this.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Magnalium
• teflon
• sulfur
• kno3
• polytetrafluoroethylene
• potassium
• nitrate
• flash
• powder

[Bubblewrapbud]

so is this just teflon and magnalium? i dont understand if theres kno3 or not...

[JaycubL]

@Bubblewrapbud There is kno3 because carbon is produced as a byproduct of the teflon/magnalium reaction, so adding kno3 corrects the oxygen ballance provides a secondary gunpowder-like reaction.

You could use anything that reacts with carbon in place of the kno3.

[mcwario13]

teflon?

[JaycubL]

@mcwario13 Fluorine is the strongest oxidizer and carbon is below Mg and Al on the reactivity series so it works like a thermite.

[mcwario13]

@JaycubL is it powdered already or do you make it into a powder?

[JaycubL]

@mcwario13 If you mean the teflon, I scraped it off of a pan to form powdery flakes, but a fine powder would of course be better.

[JaycubL]

@PoopSwindler Uh, that's not true.... Teflon is really not that dangerous. Cooking oil emits more toxic gasses than teflon, and at a lower tempurature.

[mcwario13]

IVE GOT THAT BLOWTORCH

[antiswattt3]

@plrokster309 and THATS one of the problems, too (: i think the only copper salt im able to get is cuso4, if lucky buying otherwise h2so4 + cu

tho i could use h2so4 + nh4no3 and then afterwards hno3 + cu, but then there would be impurities (nh4so4) unless i boil it down.. but the no2 gas could be reused by bubbling through water?

[plrokster309]

@antiswattt3 You can make CuNO3 by dissolving copper in Nitric Acid until the brown gas clears. The brown gas is Nitrogen Dioxide, so I seggust you do this reaction outside.

[antiswattt3]

@plrokster309 yes, tho the problem would be to find cupper nitrate s: therefore using copper electrodes in H2SO4 would be preferred.. (; or just letting it react slowly..