Magnesium and Calcium Chloride?

[wintermute]

This is primarily idle musing on my part, but has anyone here contemplated using magnesium ribbon and calcium chloride as a SHTF type firestarter? Pouring rain, etc. Light the magnesium ribbon to get a super hot flame and the CaCl as an oxidizing agent to help wet wood to start?

Just wonderin' - just one of those days.

 

[PB Wilson]

I've never tried it, but where does one get magnesium ribbon?

I'd love to try some fun and potentially dangerous chemical reactions using fire like I've seen on youtube. Thermite anyone?

 

[foxyrick]

Might be fun in the lab, but I'm not sure it's a good emergency prep...

The magnesium ribbon is quite hard to light - if you can light it, you can light something else easier. The calcium chloride is hygroscopic and will absorb moisture like mad given half a chance - it's used as a drying agent.

Besides, mixing magnesium with strong oxidising agents can be a little hazardous...

Probably fun to play with though!

I used to play with all sorts of redox mixtures like this. The easiest one to get the materials for is potassium permanganate with sugar, about 50:50. It's really easy to light (even with a lens and the sun) and slow burning; the finer the powder, the quicker it burns. You can replace half the sugar with aluminium or magnesium powder/flakes/turnings/filings for hotter and quicker burning, but be warned: This tends to make the mixture unstable if it gets just a little damp and it can spontaneously ignite. Not nice if it's in your pocket kit! This tends to be the case with a lot of redox mixtures and I've seen it first hand several times.

I was once asked to light a bonfire of damp tree branches by the groundskeeper at work. I mixed a beaker full of a mixture similar to the above, with a few extra ingredients, and started walking across the lab. By the time I got to the other side I was running and dumped the lot into the waste sink and turned on the taps, just as it started to flare up! One of the ingredients must have got a touch damp in storage; I could easily have lost my face! The heat of the beaker within the first few seconds gave it away.

I gave the groundskeeper my gas torch instead!

 

[CaptInsano]

Might be fun in the lab, but I'm not sure it's a good emergency prep...

The magnesium ribbon is quite hard to light - if you can light it, you can light something else easier. The calcium chloride is hygroscopic and will absorb moisture like mad given half a chance - it's used as a drying agent.

Besides, mixing magnesium with strong oxidising agents can be a little hazardous...

Probably fun to play with though!

I used to play with all sorts of redox mixtures like this. The easiest one to get the materials for is potassium permanganate with sugar, about 50:50. It's really easy to light (even with a lens and the sun) and slow burning; the finer the powder, the quicker it burns. You can replace half the sugar with aluminium or magnesium powder/flakes/turnings/filings for hotter and quicker burning, but be warned: This tends to make the mixture unstable if it gets just a little damp and it can spontaneously ignite. Not nice if it's in your pocket kit! This tends to be the case with a lot of redox mixtures and I've seen it first hand several times.

I was once asked to light a bonfire of damp tree branches by the groundskeeper at work. I mixed a beaker full of a mixture similar to the above, with a few extra ingredients, and started walking across the lab. By the time I got to the other side I was running and dumped the lot into the waste sink and turned on the taps, just as it started to flare up! One of the ingredients must have got a touch damp in storage; I could easily have lost my face! The heat of the beaker within the first few seconds gave it away.

I gave the groundskeeper my gas torch instead!

Potassium nitrate is often easier to get than permanganate and it lights readily with a hot spark. Same ratio will yield a little sootier, smokier burn, but going a little heavier on the potassium nitrate should be good.

You can get magnesium ribbons from many chemical supply companies. However, they're difficult enough to light to cancel out any benefit they might have.

If you wanted to go with calcium, why not snag some calcium carbide? Just make sure to keep it dry.

 

[metalfof]

Potassium permanganate crystals and glyserine(both easy to obtain) will ignite-soak a piece of cotton wool in the liquid add the crystals,scrunch and leave.This is a slow reaction unlike some redox ones(try aluminium powder and feric III oxide -thermite, at your peril)