newspaper charcoal for BP

[SpiffyVision]

I know I shouldnt make a new thread on my first post but im just going to forget that for now. I've been making BP with newspaper charcoal with very good results. Heres some video:

a 2.5 gram pile just being burned:

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid87/pec9e90dc58b86cc53cfeac4f19f83b96/fa9adb6b.mpg

and a polumna with probably about 2.5 grams also:


http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid87/p26919934f19ad2e0f468762dc9a50c79/fa9adb60.mpg



If those links dont work (im going to be pissed if they dont), use these two:

http://www.geocities.com/spiffy_vision/Cap0003.mpg

http://www.geocities.com/spiffy_vision/Cap0004.mpg


the 2 and a half gram pile burn would have burned faster if it had a little higher mesh, this stuff was too grainy.


again, im sorry for starting a new thread on my first post. Are there any questions or comments?

[Tuatara]

Sorry SpiffyVision, none of those links work. Imagestation don't like external links to their pages,
the geocities link just comes up 'unavailable'

Not wishing to ursurp the mod's banning perogatives, but a firstpost/new topic is often accepted if it provides new and interesting information - which I think is what you are trying to do. The guideline is to prevent an endless succession of pointless or stupid new threads.

[ALENGOSVIG1]

Right click and save as.

I was actually quite impressed with the burn rate of the BP considering the charcoal was made from newspaper.

[Ollie Snowie]

That's a great idea, SpiffyVision!
I always thought that all the clay and glue that thay add to paper would make it give rubbish charcoal -- seemingly not!
That BP is much better than any I have made with normal charcoal. I remember doing an experiment with leaf charcoal because there were loads of leaves around where I was. Unfortunately there were no scales around where I was, so I made a small pinch of rubbishy BP. The idea was that trees are supposed to take all the goodness (badness when it gets into BP) out of the leaves and store it for the winter, and we carbonise the fallen leaves to make good (?) charcoal. I suppose that mashing the wood up with water and then drying it to make paper helps remove some of the soluble salts that contribute to the BP's otherwise slow burning. I suppose that washing charcoal before using it would do the same thing, but then the charcoal would still not be as soft as it would be if it were made of paper.
I'm gonna try this! :D

[SpiffyVision]

Originally posted by ALENGOSVIG1
Right click and save as.

I was actually quite impressed with the burn rate of the BP considering the charcoal was made from newspaper.


if it was even finer it would have burned considerably faster (not finer as in meal powder). Im going to get more video of this in a few more things, I just dont know what to try it out in. I'd be glad for any suggestions of what I should try it out with. Oh, and what link are you talking about? the geocities one or the imagestation one?

[SpiffyVision]

I recall a guy claiming to have made some incredible fast burning BP because he made his charcoal out of cellulose (newspaper, cotton, im pretty sure thats what newspaper is made out of). So thats why this stuff is quite good.

[blindreeper]

That thread is on xinventions some where. The person burnt the cotton inside aluminium foil somehow I believe. Anyway SpiffyVision good piece of advice that will help you in the future so you don't clog up threads with double posts :) Not meaning to be rude just letting you know because I don't like seeing people who have something to contribute get banned
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-10/431717/whatyoudidwrong.JPG

[Blackhawk]

yes there was talk that he heated cellulose fibres (from cotton) in Al foil, it was black like carbon but retained it's springyness, he soaked it in KNO3 soloution and it 'apparently' burnt as fast as regular BP, well the videos are great, that is quite fast burning considering the other videos of homemade BP I have seen, I will try some of this too (perhaps, if I get time). I suppose the charcoal from the newspaper contains volitiles, like solvents trapped in the glues, that make the BP much faster, that and the grease from everyones fingers as they read the paper :P

[xyz]

I'll hopefully try this soon. A good way to do it would be to roll up the newspaper and put it inside a paint can with a hole in the lid, then put this in a fire until smoke stops coming out of the hole.

[fire vs. water]

wow that BP burns amazingly fast!!!
What method do you use to make the paper charcoal??
I put a lot of it in one of those Danish Butter Cookies box, and heated it from beneath until it smoked...

I reccomend wetting it a tiny bit before heating it, I seem to get better results with the charcoal that way...

I've made some BP like yours before, but it never worked as well.
How do you turn your newspaper charcoal into powder? I tried a mixer and a ball mill,
but it wasn't very succesful...
any ideas?

[PanMaster]

does it go all fluffy?, i once made charcoal from tissues that was very good, it works well even if it doesn't appear to look like a powder, the softer it is, the better

[SpiffyVision]

i cooked it in this thing: http://www.geocities.com/spiffy_vision/P1010039.JPG sorry for the big image, I dont have time to resize this. The picture also has a cooked newspaper also. The tissue paper to the side with all the brown stuff on it is the crap that collected on the lid. I'll tell you how I made mine when I get back from school. Oh, and when your cooking it, DONT open the lid, it will all go up in flames, I cooked mine on a propane stove on the BBQ. Youre probably going to have to turn the paper around after cooking one side for awhile. You turn it off and you turn it around quickly and replace the lid, it has a bad habbit of burning whenever its exposed to the air (if its cooled down all the way it doesnt burn). I g2g, thanks blind for the advice, I'll edit this post when I get home.

[SpiffyVision]

heres 7.6 grams of BP in a mortar tube launching a duct tape ball, the sound you hear right after the launch is the ball hitting the ceiling http://www.geocities.com/spiffy_vision/mortartube.mpg for this I just put some BP in the tube and put the ball in. So maybe I could have got better results doing something different.

[Blackhawk]

That worked really well, the initial flare is probably becuase the tapeball didn't fit in perfectly, I recently fired a comercial star from a tube with some leftover BP, i decided to make the star an airtight fit in the tube by wrapping one layer of tissue around it, it fit perfectly but moved in and out with almost no resistance. when it shot it made a nice thump sound with no muzzle flare and went easily twice as high as the star would have origionally gone in it's comercial housing (I used no more BP either) the moral being if the shell/star fits nicely you will get much more performance out of the BP you use, especially if it is slow.

[SpiffyVision]

yeah, the ball just fell right in, and I had no clue about how much BP I should have used for lifting that ball.

[scarletmanuka]

Today I attempted producing charcoal from cotton buds by wrapping in alfoil and putting it on the stove until no more smoke came out. I didn;t put a hole in the foil, it just found it's own way out. I used the charcoal from three buds: approx 0.13 grams (not much) to make some BP. I wrapped all the ingredients in paper and hit with a hammer untill the buds were broken up and the KNO3/S was quite fine, and then mixed with a drop of water.
This created a clay like mixture which was easily moulded into any shape without breaking apart. It was not as fast as piffy Vision's BP, but was very easy to work with. I wouldn't say it was a practical idea though.

[SpiffyVision]

I tried cotton balls before, it makes no sense to use them because before their cooked they weigh only half a gram. So if you really want to make it out of cotton, use a shirt or a sheet or something of the sort.

[Wozzles]

A few weeks ago, my old chem teacher and I dehydrated sugar with h2so4. The leftover you get is just carbon. As soon as I get some more KNO3, I'm going to try this for the charcoal. The ratio's weren't really perfect (70 grams sucrose, 70 Mls 98% H2SO4), but it worked. The carbon pilliar left over was a little sticky, and reaked like hell. Hmm, i just remebered i still have to give him that beaker back...o well.

[0EZ0]

By all means try, but your BP is most likely not going to perform very well. Pure versions of carbon like lampblack really only find use in prime composositions and some star comps. Search for the other threads on charcoal for information on why.

[PanMaster]

I know why, because pure carbon when ground can not be made very fine as it easily bonds together in a giant structure which produces little energy when burnt, lamp black which appears to weigh nothing and seems very fine, is in fact Carbon 60, 80 or even 100, all bonded together in structures called fullerenes, 60 is buckministerfullerene. In plant cells carbon is locked up in reasonably small pieces, cells, thus there is a faster burn rate but also there are hydrocarbon fuels that improve the energy output. I think I have reasonably explained the theory.

[Bert]

Heating charcoal too long drives off the volatiles and gives it poor performance in black powder, but the slower burning characteristics may actualy IMPROVE the spark tail of a charcoal star. REALLY over heating and overcooking it can convert the Carbon to graphite (what PanMaster is talking about, I think)- Then it won't burn well in anything. For propellant use, it is best to just carbonize for the minimum time at the lowest heat needed to convert the base material to something completely black that can be milled. And as much fun as trying other things may be, there's a good reason that fast growing soft woods are and allways have been the first choice for propellant grade BP. GOEX may use maple, but they're more interested in uniformity than power and speed. (If you're making charcoal stars, by all means try pine. Also you may like apple, peach or other fruit woods.)

[T_Pyro]

Graphite consists of parallel planes of a large number of hexagonal units, and the planes are held together by weak vanderwaal forces (which is why they can slide over each other, causing the "slippery" touch). Buckministerfullerene units, C60, are very different, consisting of a spherical mesh made up of hexagonal and pentagonal units. Carbon can indeed be converted into graphite by heating strongly, but buckministerfullerene? I've never heard of that before! Besides, IIRC, the small percentage of H and O atoms remaining in charcoal made from organic matter are also neccesary for making good BP.

[PanMaster]

I was not talking about graphite, I was talking about lamp black or carbon black, which is the allotrope of buckministerfullerene, its also known as soot. Graphite is hardly possible, immense pressure/temps required, willow is superior to any other wood except for balsa wood of course which costs a lot. Maple wood or an hardwoods would make poor charcoal as they cannot be ground well.

[Ollie Snowie]

Just to clarify things a bit:
PanMaster - You surely mean diamond needs high temp. pressure! Very pure graphite (pyrolytic graphite) is made by heating methane at a LOW pressure.
The mechanism through lampblack is formed is similar to this; a hydrocarbon being decomposed at a high temperature, so buckminsterfullerene is unlikely to form (unless the low pressure in making pyrolytic graphite is for this reason).

Wozzles - Your charcoal will be extermely contaminated with H2SO4. You don't want that! :)

[Crazy Swede]

I just want to add that lampblack only contains very small amounts of different fullerenes. Amounts and types depends on how the lampblack is produced. Several years ago, I did an experiment at the University where we produced lampblack and extracted C60. (A very dirty job!)

I'm convinced however, that the presence of fullerenes has nothing, or very little, to do with the special properties of lampblack when used as a fuel in pyrotechnics.

The parameters that make lampblack so special are the small size of the carbon agglomerates and its content of volatiles!

(Edit: spell check!)

[T_Pyro]

Originally posted by Crazy Swede
I just want to add that lampblack only contains very small amounts of different fullerenes. Amounts and types depends on how the lampblack is produced.

Just what I'd been thinking, but had absolutely no way of verifying the hunch! Also, just in case it was a part of your experiment, would you have any data as to exactly which C structutres make up lampblack, and in what concentrations?

[Crazy Swede]

I'm afraid not!

I would guess that you have a little of just about every possible carbon species, except diamond, in lampblack. As I said, the carbon species and volatile contents will depend on the production method.

In my experiment, we heated graphite in a plasma furnace. I believe that lampblack more suitable for pyrotechnics is better produced by collecting the soot from an oxygen deficient acetylene flame.

[Bert]

Crazy Swede-

Do you make lamp black type compositions such as "spur fire" or senko hanabi? Or lamp black tailed stars?

[PanMaster]

hexane produces dirt loads of soot or fullerenes which i think are useless

[Crazy Swede]

Bert, the only personal experience I have using the substance in pyrotecnics is a few batches of old time dark rain stars. I don't have the formula here but it was very similar to what you will find in Davis and Lancaster.

I've never tried the Japanese sparkler effect or spur fire fountains myself. Have you?

Today, I consider lampblack to be just too dirty and staining to be worth playing around with.

[werewolf]

That's true the stuff I have makes me have to wash my hands after because they get so dirty.

[arm]

Back onto the subject of newspaper charcoal, how long (on average) does it take for the newspaper to fully 'cook'. I know that usually you would wait until the cooking vessel has stopped emmitting smoke, but how long would this be for newspaper just as a rough guide?

[SpiffyVision]

I would say probably about 5-15 minutes, it depends on what your cooking it on and the setting. I cooked mine on a propane stove on a grill, the newspaper should end up looking like this: http://www.geocities.com/spiffy_vision/P1010039.JPG that tissue to the side with all the crap on it is the stuff that collects on the lid. BTW, I pressed some of this BP with a 2 ton jack and corned it, it burned extremely fast, I'll get video if someone will tell me of a good host.

[quest]

yesterday i made some newspaper charcoal.
it took me half an hour to make 30 gram

and i used primus.

[postalwarrior]

unfourtionatly the links didn't work. sorry!

[SpiffyVision]

postal, are you talking about the videos? if they didnt work try in an hour (for the geocitites ones)

[blindreeper]

Try copying and pasteing the the picture links if they don't work. A good place to upload you videos is www.imagestation.com unlimited downloads. Just sign up and your on your way. IIRC DBSP made a public forum account on imagestation...

[dana_m_h]

for charcoal could you instead use superfine graphite dust ist main component is the same (carbon...) and it would be easier to empty a pencil sharpener than to make charcoal (just a thought)

[arm]

Its been said on the site a million times before - Graphite would make terrible BP.

Charcoal is good because of its porus nature and volatiles content.

[xyz]

And the graphite in the average pencil has a shitload of clay added to it to make it harder (so the pencil lines don't smudge).

[Dandeman321]

That's funny, I was looking for chemicals on ebay and there was some guy selling graphite powder and he said it was great for pyrotechnis. It must have different uses. I made some newspaper charcoal awhile back and it worked nicely for BP, but I still think willow is better and you get a lot better yeilds. Also I think it is a lot less work. I guess people without a good source of wood could use it though.

[HopeIDontBlowUp]

I thought you might like to know, if you have a doctor friend, that any hospital has a sweet supply of fine charcoal (they use it for poison victims) and i hear it works great for making BP.

[Bert]

Graphite is a lousy fuel, but a great refractory. High power model rocket makers use nozzles turned out of pure graphite rods for high temperature fuels that would severely erode a clay nozzle. They are often reclaimed from fired fiberglass caseings by heating on a BBQ grill untill the epoxy burns off, then re-used in another engine. Getting the idea? Conductive lampblack is used in some igniter formulas where no bridge wire is used, the composition itself serving as the resistance element. But it's not the primary fuel in these mixes, ususaly.

Activated charcoal is a good fuel, but too expensive for most commercial uses.

[scarletmanuka]

For the Australians:
Paper bark charcoal works well, but the best part is that it is easily crushed into a super fine dust after being converted to charcoal. It is also very porous, and has produced the fastest BP I have made so far.

[Mumble]

Would you care to expound on the paper bark? I was just searching on google for it. I have found many different plants. There's the paper bark birch, a paper bark cherry tree, a paper bark maple, and plain paper bark tree. There's also a paper bark product used in scrapbooking. To which source do you refer? The paper bark scrapbook material comes from australia so this would be one of my better guesses.

The paper bark birch grows around here. If it wasn't frozen, I might go an harvest some from the neighbors(if this is the right one). Any of the sources I've mentioned definatly fit your description.

[Blackhawk]

From what I know around here paperbark is just a tree with white flaky and very soft bark that you can easily pull off and use like paper (even though it is so soft as to be damaged by the pen), sorry but I don't know the exact type of tree it is but it would make sense that the paper bark would make good C as it is very soft and light (=porous).

[scarletmanuka]

Thats what paer bark is, it covers a genus of trees named melaleuca. Be sure to cook it for a long time, because it contains some pretty heavy volatiles. I extracted the oil from semi carbonised paper bark (dark brown) using acetone, and there was a suprisingly large amount. So it would help to cook at high temp for a very long time.

[krimmie]

Melaleuca were brought here to Florida to drain the swamps...they soak up huge amounts of water. They are native to Austrailia but have become an environmental problem here. Here's a couple of pics(of the bark) from the tree in my yard...I'll cook some when the rain stops and post the results(compared to willow).
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2002-10/57400/maleluca002.jpg
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2002-10/57400/maleluca001.jpg

[fire vs. water]

um, I have a nice thing you guys can try...
One evening, my friends and I were making food (meat and potatoes) by a campfire...
We wrapped the potatoes in tinfoil, and threw them in the fire to cook.

After half an hour or so, we took them out, and ate them.
An hour or so after that, I noticed there was a potato which we forgot to take out of the fire.
I pulled it out, let it cool for a while, and open the tinfoil.
I found most of the potato had turned to ash.

I thought of eating it before I opened it, but when I opened it, it was so black, and I said to myself: "shit, I can't eat this, this is almost material for making blackpowder!"
that thought was followed by another: "why the hell not try that?!?"

I put the ashed potato in my bag and took it home. I crushed the potato to powder (which was VERY easy to do). I put it in a blender to turn it in to finer powder.
I then made BP using the CIA method with my potato charcoal.

It made some very fast burning BP.
I highly recommend this method!!!

[SpiffyVision]

Do you mind making a video of it? Preferably a trail of it?

[scarletmanuka]

Nice work Krimmie, its unusual to see a tree that we have in our own backyard half a world away. That certaintly is the paper bark allright. It would be very interesting if you could try some of the wood as well, because I believe that would also be quite porous. Just remember to cook it well to get rid of the oil.

[krimmie]

There are some dead branches on the tree I'll be hacking off later in the week, so I will try the wood. I'll take your advice and cook it well. I didn't get a chance to cook any of the bark this weekend because of endless rain(like 3.5 inches). Until then................

[krimmie]

I made some charcoal from the bark of the melaleuca tree and tested the burn rate compared with other available charcoals. The following charcoals were used;
1). Willow, finely ground from a guy who advertises on rec.pyrotechnics.
2). Skylighter purchased airfloat that says is made from mixed hardwoods.
3). Pine from Home Depot(not pressure treated).
4). Melaleuca from my tree.

The skylighter charcoal was airfloat and the rest passed through a 80 mesh screen. To test the burn rate I made a meal powder of each containing: KNO3 75%, C 15%, and S 10%. I then made black match out of each variety using cotton string cut to 33cm. After 48 hrs. of drying on racks, each was ignited electrically and timed with a stop watch.

Three samples of each were burned but 1 sample of pine and 1 of the skylighter "jumped" so had to be discounted. Also, 1 sample of the melaleuca failed to burn the entire lenght and was not counted. The final results will be the average of two burns per C type( I threw out the fastest willow time to make things fair).

Average burn time per/sec. for 33 cm. lenght of black match.
Willow 9.1
Skylighter 9.6
Pine 10
Melaleuca 11.5

The willow burned the fastest even though it was not as fine as the skylighter product. The melaleuca was pretty disappointing as one sample failed to burn through and another sputtered quite a bit. The melaleuca bark doesn't have the bite!

[atmosphere1]

I use charcoal made out of bleached (white) toilet paper in BP, very good!!
A mix with KNO3 (70%) and this charcoal(30 %) makes an excellent non-sparking proppellant too, when you gave it the right treatment.

[nesler]

There have been times where I didn't want to go through all the trouble of making charcoal, and through a little experimentation, I found that the mesquite lump (not briquette, for obvious reasons) charcoal commonly available at supermarkets works quite nicely. However, I've only used it when ballmilling wet mixtures of black powder, which apparently is advantageous when working with low grade charcoal. I'll have to do a dry batch and see how that turns out.

[s25]

Well on my forums (a0tu) there was a disscusion on using straw for charcoal http://haze.gotdns.com/s25/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=12 that is teh link now i am not trying to advertise my site i just thought you guys may be interested :D

[mr.pyro]

Sorry for resurecting an old thread, but I have been doing some testing with charcoal made out of redwood. This is very common in America and I used it because there was no willow. It seems to be very quick burning and will launch smoke bombs very high with just a couple of grams.

I have a video
http://members.cox.net/010205/bpcorned.wmv