For example, you have probably seen both sparklers and firecrackers. The sparkler demonstrates how to get bright, sparkling light from a firework and the firecracker shows how to create an explosion. Firecrackers have been around for hundreds of years. Black powder, discussed briefly on the How Stuff Works page titled How Rockets Work , contains charcoal, sulfur and potassium nitrate. A composition used in a firecracker might have aluminum instead of or in addition to charcoal in order to brighten the explosion.
Sparklers are very different from firecrackers.
The fuel is charcoal and sulfur, as in black powder. The binder can be sugar or starch. Once it dries, you have a sparkler. The fuel and oxidizer are proportioned along with the other chemicals in a sparkler so that it burns slowly rather than exploding like a firecracker. It is very common for fireworks to contain aluminum, iron, steel, zinc or magnesium dust in order to create bright, shimmering sparks.