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ping pong question


bigboi

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I was watching a show bout firefighters. To burn off flammable underbrush in forests so they dont ignite later, they filled ping pong balls with a chemical and dropped them from helicopters into the area that they wanted to burn the underbrush in. When filled with the chemical, the balls would ignite with a few seconds delay, i think it was 7 seconds. Does anyone know what the chemical could be?

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I know that normal ping pong balls have some small amount of butane in them, I believe. (The only reason I know this is because while in college we lit a whole bunch of ping-pong balls on fire, and a nice clear, blue-flame came jetting out from an open hole we created in the ping-pong ball).

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Ethylene glycol can be replaced be glycerine if I recall correctly.

 

You just inject glycol into the dry permanganate. It gets hot due to glycol oxidtaion until it starts to burn. Ping pong ball is made of nitrocelluloid so once it starts to burn it gives long flame.

 

We made smoke bombs from ping pong balls when I was a kid :)

 

Best,

Borek

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Chemical calculators at www.chembuddy.com

pH calculation

concentration calculator

 

Smarkotan oz gluthozmaz

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Borek; you`re exactly correct on both counts, only Eth Gly is used as it gives a longer time before ignition :)

 

H2 READ post #8 it clearly states that potassium permanganate is in the NC spheres, and just before deplyment ethylene glycol is injected into them, WHAT PART don`t you understand here?

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