Palm Tree Charcoal Black Powder Formula

Here's a pyrotechnic formula for making a black powder using palm tree charcoal.

Materials Needed

• Ball mill
• Ethanol
• Palm tree charcoal
• Potassium nitrate (CH5300)
• Sulfur (CH8315)
• Water

Ed. D. supplied this one. Thanks, Ed.

I've made some tests with charcoals for black powder. I’d noticed that palm fronds burn very fast in a campfire. So, in one of my tests I used palm tree wood (taken from the base of a frond) to make charcoal. The charcoal was a bit crumbly, rather soft, and very easy to handle. As far as I could tell, the charcoal had some fiber in it, so the charcoal may still have contained some wood, but if so, it was a very small fraction. Point is that when I made Black powder using it, it sucked as a rocket propellant, but it was beautiful to watch! The charcoal gave long-burning "flakes" (yellow, of course) that burned all the way to the ground from an apogee of about 30 meters. I am currently using the charcoal to make beautiful comets. The pyrotechnic formula is:

Potassium nitrate	59.7 grams
Charcoal	19.3 grams
Sulfur	21 grams

All ball milled for 3.5 hours with 20% water/ethanol (1:1)

To Learn More Uses For Charcoals Read These:

"Pyrotechnic Formulas For Willow Firework Stars"
"How To Make Black Powder Sky Rockets" "Stinger Missile Stickless Black Powder Sky Rockets"
"Cheap Small-Batch Firework Chemical Milling"