A brief review of silicone chemistry is included as a background for the choice of suitable silicone materials. This is followed by some pyrotechnic chemistry, including observations, methods, and ideas for how to use silicone compositions in fireworks. Silicones show great promise for certain applications and may prove to be safer and less costly than some of the materials they could replace. This paper describes a method for determining the velocity of fragments produced when firework maroon shells explode. The magnitude of the velocities measured indicates the potential hazard associated with these fragments and the need to consider methods of reducing such hazards.
Pyrotechnic glitter is characterized by a liquid spark terminating in a delayed flash.
The chemical mechanisms responsible for the delay and the flash are not known with certitude. Several pyrotechnists have proposed hypothetical mechanisms to account for the phenomena. The different proposals engender different predictions regarding how a glitter performs as a function of its composition. Consequently the behavior of experimental glitter compositions sheds light on the validity of the various proposals. Although experiments on colored glitter are hitherto disappointing, with the exception of yellow, further work may yet yield useful results.