Practical Chemistry in Writing

[klope3]

Hello. I'm new here, and unfortunately very inexperienced at chemistry at this point in my life. So, please don't laugh at me if I say something stupid.

 

 

 

 

This is an unusual question, but hopefully it can be accepted here anyway. At first it sounds completely out of place, but it does concern chemistry in the end, so just bear with me as I progress. Or skip ahead to the emboldened text (my question) if you get bored with my obligatory intro.

 

 

I'm writing a moderately fantasy-based series of short stories in which I have decided to introduce chemistry (a science for which I have recently discovered a great personal fascination). In the story, a certain race has made the discovery of chemical reactions which happen when certain natural materials are introduced to one another.

 

Because this series is based approximately in the medieval era, so while the scientists of the race understand what happens in this reactions, they don't understand why; for this reason and for lack of a better term, they have given labeled the science "earth-magic" and studied it for at least a century.

 

I'm building on a concept called the base five: the five basic chemicals which this scientific race has found react in very obvious ways when combined with one another.

 

So here comes the question! Two materials of this base five collection include an off-white (probably slightly yellow), flour-like powder and a watery black liquid. I've just written a scene in which these two are combined on a pile of twigs and suddenly combust. Is it realistic for a solid and a liquid to react together and combust with this level of speed?

 

In the very few chemical experiments I've carried out in my lifetime, I do recall at least one reaction between a solid and a liquid that have produced a small degree of heat--the reaction that occurs when combining CaCl with Phenol Red solution, the latter of which I do not know the the chemical makeup (but the reaction also produced some sort of odorous gas). But, I don't know what sorts of chemical reactions would produce amounts of heat great enough to ignite things like wood or fabric.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

If the powder consisted of, say, sodium or potassium (potassium would make a much more violent reaction), and the liquid had water in it, there would be a rapid reaction producing flame.

 

A video of potassium reacting with water:

[klope3]

Ah yes, the alkali metals. I've seen video examples of those in water. Thanks for that advice.

 

Is there any material (preferably black as I stated) that is a liquid at room temperature and would cause a similar reaction? To fit the conditions I've already set up, I need a black, watery liquid and a powder (the color of sodium works just fine for "off-white"). If there's no viable combination similar to this, I can change the conditions, but it would be nice if I could match these parameters (and the ones mentioned in my first post).