Evaluation & Testing of Emission on Sargassum wightii Based Flash Powder Composition

Abstract

Environmental pollution is one of the major concerns leading to the rise in the temperature of the earth's surface. Owing to this serious concern, many countries in the world are facing so many environmental disasters every year. Hence, it becomes the need of the hour to act immediately to reduce environmental pollution so that the future becomes safer. Fireworks form an integral part of the Indian Subcontinent in almost all the festivals and cultural rituals. This results in the emission of a huge amount of various toxic fumes that directly affect the environmental purity of the air. The objective of the current research work focuses on the reduction of pollution caused due to the emission from burning fireworks. One of the important ingredients used in pyrotechnics is flash powder. The traditional flash powder composition contains aluminium powder as fuel, potassium nitrate as an oxidizer and Sulphur as an igniter at defined levels. To reduce the impact of toxic emissions in flash powder, an organic compound like Sargassum wightii brown seaweed powder is used as a replacement at prescribed levels and the experimentation is carried out. It is found that the Sulphur weightage in the flash powder composition can be replaced up to 50% with the Sargassum wightii brown seaweed powder without affecting the traditional performance of the flash powder. To study the emissions taking place in the flash powder composition, a specially designed flash powder emission testing chamber has been developed. Upon testing, it is evident that the flash powder composition with Sargassum wightii showed that there is a reduction in toxic emission upto 21% on the modified flash powder. This helps in generating cleaner emission and leads to attain greener pyrotechnics norms.