tags: flame test, identifying salts, chemistry, streaming video
Some elements can be identified by the colors they emit while burning. This is a quality that chemists use to identify salts, by burning them. In this video, a science teacher douses several exotic salts in methanol and ignites all of them at the same time. The results are really spectacular -- green, orange, yellow, blue, and purple flames burning side by side. [2:01]
Do not do this in your parents' kitchen or you will become very good friends with the local fire department, and probably the local police as well.
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Very nice.
Just remember to NEVER, NEVER have your stock methanol bottle open when there is open flame about. People get injured/die almost every year in schools doing this kind of thing. (Often by squirting more alcohol on the flames as they die down)
Len
I decided to stop doing this for concern about breathing heavy metals, but rubidium is cool - really red (but so is lithium usually)- and lead makes a very strange looking white flame (in the fume hood of course!) Strontium has a radioactive isotope that becomes lodged in the body because of its similarity to calcium. Very good demo, but don't inhale!
Also, any high school students/young undergrads reading this, recall that methanol is POISONOUS. Even inhaling the vapour can cause blindness/death.
The flame test experiments should be part of a standard chemistry lab, where you'll perform it in a much safer and controlled way.