Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Why Do Some Butane Lighters Have Green Flames?

By Wendy Mallikarjunan


You may have seen some people light up a torch lighter that gave off a brilliant green flame. In fact, if someone lights one of these up next to you, it's pretty hard to miss. That, of course, is the entire point. There are some people who hold that these planes are slightly cooler than other flames though this is debatable. Any flame from the torch is produced by combusting butane and, therefore, the heat of the flame will be within the same range no matter what color it happens to be.

Different elements burn in different colors. For example, burning table salt will give off a brilliant yellow flame. The color is noticeably different from the orange that you commonly see in most fires. This has been a trick used in chemistry classes to get students interested for many years. In fact, astronomers use this technique to determine what types of chemicals are burning within a star.

This copper adds nothing any more toxic to the flames, so these lighters are safe. Before you go get a chemistry set and start trying to make your own colored flames, however, realize that adding the wrong chemicals to a flame can make it toxic. Never try to do this yourself. The parts of the lighter that produce the green flame are integrated into it in a way that makes them safe to use.

There are some of these lighters that are advertised as being cooler than a regular butane torch-in the heat sense, not the sense that they're more hip-and some cigar smokers gravitate to them for this reason. Check the documentation on the lighter that you're looking at regarding this. If the flame is designed to be cooler, there will be some engineering involved. You can make a cheap green lighter, however, so you need to make sure you know what you're buying and that's really what you're looking for.

There are other colors of lighters on the market, as well, and they can be quite a bit of fun. If you're looking for something a bit flashier than average, consider these for a change of pace. There are red flamed lighters available and even lighters that produce more than one color of flame out of multiple jets. These will certainly catch anyone's eye when you turn them on and they're great if you want something to start a conversation with. The higher-priced models are much better than the novelty types.




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