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jgourlay
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Chemistry for camping?
All, I'm looking for some chemical recommendations. I had this weekend a wonderful "fantasy versus reality" experience known as the "Wilderness
Survival Merit Badge Campout". I was one of the dads helping a gaggle of 13 kids ranging in age from 12 to 16. This 18 hour, overnight experience
was one of the top 4 or 5 most educationally dense experiences of my life. I would like to get from this group some recommendations for next year's
camp-out as I have made the mental commitment to go on every 'wilderness survival' experience I can get.
The advice I'd humbly ask from this group is around fire starting. First, the scenario, then a debrief of "what works" and "what doesn't work".
Scenario: temperate forest, torrential downpour, wet, shivering, very cold, dispirited group, muddy ground, lots of wood, either 'living' (wet) or
semi-rotting, and nothing dry. No dry grass, no dry leaves, nothing both dry and un-rotten. Very, very difficult to get your firestarting supplies
from a pocket to the ground without them getting soaked. In this scenario (this weekend!!) getting the fire started DURING THE DOWNPOUR is critical
for both physiological and psychological reasons.
What worked: the absolute tiniest of twigs, a softball size glob of dry lint, sparklers, forced air (LOTS of blowing), magnesium "assist".
What didn't work: "weatherproof matches". The MATCHES worked well, the STRIKER on the other hand was scraped to nothing by match two. Small
quantities of anything. Interestingly, a quarter cup of magnesium did NOT work. I'm assuming that through capillary action it soaked up a lot of
water from the muddy ground while we were building the twig teepee. By the time I lit off the magnesium, it had soaked up enough water to become
largely ineffective. It was useful, later, as an assist as we dug what was left out of the mud. The tiny little "fire starter" devices sold at
sporting stores and universally recommended by every "wilderness survival" handbook known to man are completely, utterly useless unless your
environment is a kansas wheat field in September after a summer drought. Interestingly, it was also wet enough that a full cup of "white gas" poured
on did not have enough energy to 'work'. Note that both the magnesium and white gas together did dry things out enough that lint and mag assist could
work.
So, I'm looking for something very specific:
1. needs to be safely transportable, preferably in powder form. By "safe" I mean that if it's spilled in a backpack it will neither be a
poisen/hazmat disaster, nor spontaneously combust.
2. Energy dense: half a cup or so should 'do the job'. Hiking packs and day packs don't have much room.
3. It's GOT to work in sopping wet conditions. And "work" means that it has enough energy, and enough burn time, that it can dry out and ignite
water-soaked chopstick diameter sticks.
4. Officially, and un-officially legal. Ordering "it" or the ingredients for "it" online should not put me on the "no-fly" list.
5. Conventionally ignitable. I'll put the boundary here at "sparkler" ignition with a strong preference for match/lighter ignition. This is really
important because it very difficult to protect something fragile like sparklers from getting bent/crushed in a backpack.
6. Storable: I should be able to store "it" in a bottle, and throw that in the back pack and not have to worry about it becoming either unstable or
useless if it gets left in there for a decade. Remember, this is a "when you need it most" piece of kit.
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elementcollector1
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Magnesium is your best bet (being a Boy Scout, I speak from experience). Grind some shavings up, store them in a bottle, and close the bottle tightly.
Pocket lint is another good idea, and a third would be to carry some dry tinder (not a log, more like 'fuzz sticks' in terms of size). Half a cup of
magnesium shavings should last you quite a while! Additionally, match/lighter ignition is easy if you keep your magnesium shavings small.
Becoming useless: As far as I can tell, magnesium has a good shelf-life, but will oxidize over time. Try to fill up the bottle, and keep it closed
most of the time, and you should be fine.
The scenario: Use rocks for a small firepit (place them in a ring / around a small pit), and place the lint, tinder, and possibly the magnesium in the
center. Light it, and slowly add small, dry (carry them in your pack in a towel?) sticks of increasing size until you have a fire.
By the way, those 'weatherproof matches' often come with extra strikers - could that be for the reason you described?
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DraconicAcid
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Odd- I've always found magnesium to be a pain in the neck to light.
I've heard that one can make a kind of candle with wax and dryer lint- the lint acts as a fantastic wick and the wax burns like blazes. But I've
never tried it, so your milage may vary.
Please remember: "Filtrate" is not a verb.
Write up your lab reports the way your instructor wants them, not the way your ex-instructor wants them.
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elementcollector1
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Oh, and gasoline / lighter fluid. Works like a charm. 
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Ral123
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Great scenario pal. I'm a huge fan of worst case scenarios, when designing something. The standard for me would be a new bic maxi lighter and some
hexamine. For energy density and convenience propane/air burners are the best. Other fuels will either have less energy density(like hexamine) or burn
very dirty(and again produce low energy). My magnesium is very difficult to light. Ethanol is a good choice-medium energy density, clean burning, and
does not lack of other uses 
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elementcollector1
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Do you guys cut your magnesium from the standard 'rectangles' they sell?
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chemcam
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Igniting Magnesium Easily
I cut my magnesium pieces from those ribbons into irregular, elongated triangles so when I need to light them I can get the flame right on the tip, it
ignites no problem. Oh, you mean the thick rectangles in the camping section? With those I use a drill press and make my own turnings. Although, I
prefer to buy Mg turnings off of eBay because they are thinner than the ribbons, $20/lb is the price I try to pay.
*EDIT*
(eBay) $24.50 w/ Shipping
[Edited on 4-29-2013 by chemcam]
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Boron Trioxide
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Well you could try some perchlorate mix with some heavy hydrocarbon, as long as there is lots more fuel than oxidizer it should burn slowly similar to
a road flare, to store you could mix into a slurry before hand, then store in a strong metal tin. In retrospect this idea should only be used if you
have experience with powerful pyrotechnic compositions. 
An even better idea would to make some alcohol based flaming jelly, just mix calcium acetate with ethanol and it will make some slurry that will burn
for a long time and is easy to store.
Final idea would be just to carry around some calcium carbide and mix with water, it may even react with really wet wood.
As always be careful especially if help is far away.
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BobD1001
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Potassium permagnanate with a few drops of glycerin on it makes a fantastic camping fire starter!
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Metacelsus
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This is one of those rare cases where you want a fire, not an explosion.
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Godspeed429
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A fire piston maybe?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_piston
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violet sin
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if you keep some steel wool dry it is great for starting fires. pull off a lill bit and wad it up, but not tight. wrap it in a bit of tender. pull a
bit of steel wool looser and the spark from a dead bic lighter will set it off. blow on it and the steel wool glows really hot starting the tinder.
worked many times for me.
I cut/drilled the bottom off an old bic(still sparked) and shoved a bunch of steel wool in it. took another bic's end piece and super-glued that on
the one with ss wool in it. threw it in my hunting gear. though I did end up filling the lighter with butane(the hard way) it would have been fine
for starting a fire with just spark and dry ss wool.
its not super chemistry related, but burning metal starting your fire from a spark sure isn't standard procedure.
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Ral123
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May be a bic lighter and a foil with KNO3(or even better-Tetryl)/Al with heavy Al excess.
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chemcam
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Keep thermite in a plastic baggy so it stays dry ignite it with a pen torch with piezo ignition while inside the bag still. Burning plastic isn't
great but in an emergency situation or in need of fire it works.
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jgourlay
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All, thanks. I've got several ideas here I'm going to try. I'll try the thermite, and also the 'candle' idea. I'm thinking of maybe trying to make
the 'candle' from a mix of magnesium shavings, lint, and tri-oxane.
Also will look at the calcium carbide.
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elementcollector1
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Thermite is actually not a good idea - will not light if wet, and difficult to light properly in the first place. Also, assuming you do light it, it's
overkill for a regular fire.
Calcium carbide is the same - much too violent a reaction for home use.
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watson.fawkes
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Don't forget one of the very most basic tools: tarpaulin, poles, and rigging to make a shed roof under which to start a fire in the first place.
Everything is easier with less excess water. In my experience with youth camping, the only thing anybody carried were tents.
High surface area charcoal is a very good tinder. Make it yourself by retort pyrolysis. The retort need be nothing other than a discarded tin can. Use
a side-cutting opener so that the lid fits on. Punch a hole in the top for the liberated methanol to escape. I've used bailing wire to hold to
together, but a clip made from another tin can could work as well. Something the size of a tuna fish can should be fine.
Now the advantage of this method is that you can regenerate your tinder in the field. Once the fire is going, gather new tinder-shaped materials, such
as conifer needles or leaf litter, put it into the retort and throw it into the fire. This isn't such a necessity for a single-night trip, but a
survival rehearsal trip could well simulate the practices you'd want for a multiple-day journey.
A smallish piece of steel wire mesh can keep fuel off the ground to avoid wicking. Laying the fire on a bed of field-gathered stones would do much the
same.
Blowing on a fire works much better if you focus the breath through a tube so that it's directed exactly where you want it. Aluminum tent poles aren't
so common as they used to be, but I'm certain there are substitutes.
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Fantasma4500
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this is probably not going well with the legal issues, or well it depends on where you live so anyways
electrolysis of KCl or NaCl (whereafter reacting with KCl) will yield KClO3
filter this and some crystals will be stock, when using cloth this gives something very very interesting i found out once by mistake (25x25 cm cloth
piece)
it burns with a very tall dense flame!!
i thought about this for camping purposes, it ignites readily, and say 2g KClO3 or something alike run through a cloth filter could perhaps do the
job too
more KClO3 more burn, and it fills almost nothing, the cloth can get abit stiff but thats not a real problem
also when trying to light a fire try to block in the heat as much as possible meaning enough air to let it burn, and make a sort of roof, the top is
the most important, try to deroute the hot gasses to use as much as possible heat
then another thing that should be legal
calcium acetate with ethanol or other fuels in
calcium acetate is made my Ca(OH)2 or CaCO3 + vinegar (preferably clean) simply boiled down and when heated to ~160*C it gives off acetone vapours
which is obviously flammable
combine this with another flammable liquid and you get both solid fuel relatively cheap and more fuel with less flammable liquid used
end products is CaCO3 as solid depending on purity of other fuels used
CaSO4 anh. + aluminium powder ''swiss rolls'' on youtube ive seen could work too, thermite like composition, not sure if you get good practical yields
considering other possibilities
also stumbled upon another thing just yesterday:
KMnO4 powder with oil
you can mix up this stuff, and bring a storm lighter to light it, gives nice purely white flames and i guess theyre pretty hot, i havent had reason to
test with my own fingers yet, basically the same as with glycerine except cheaper and storage safe as far as what i have seen
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chemcam
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Quote: Originally posted by elementcollector1  | Thermite is actually not a good idea - will not light if wet, and difficult to light properly in the first place. Also, assuming you do light it, it's
overkill for a regular fire.
Calcium carbide is the same - much too violent a reaction for home use. |
Do you have personal experience with thermite, igniting while still in the bag in the rain? And you have proof it wont work right? We would then have
conflicting data. I almost burned my whole backyard fence down in torrential rain, its why I no longer play with thermite at home, haha.
That is why I wrote to keep it in the plastic bag and light it while still in the bag! Even though I would think a 2000 degree flame from a pen torch
would dry the spot where it got wet.
Also, in an emergency situation where you are freezing your ass off would you rather have overkill for a fire-starter or do you want to be rubbing wet
sticks together all night? I think calcium carbide would be cool to demonstrate for the kids there as well.
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elementcollector1
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Would you also like to burn your face off from molten iron? Thermite, once it gets going, is pretty much uncontrollable until it ends. And in my
experience, it's a stable mixture even under a blowtorch. A pen torch could possibly light it (2000 degrees what?) but if you had the pen torch, why
use the thermite?
This isn't about demonstrating to the kids, it's about surviving the wilderness. Calcium carbide's nice, but unless you have a lot of it, it's not a
useful source. Magnesium, pocket lint, and tinder are all reliable sources that can take a while to be used up, depending on your skill and usage.
I have only managed to ignite a thermite once in my lifetime, and even then it was insanely difficult. I have better materials now, but I have no need
for a thermite recently (having no metal oxides to work with yet). Maybe our compositions differ, but I doubt that they differ so much that yours is
so easy to light.
Additionally: A fire tarp is only a good idea if you set it pretty high up - recommended that it's at least 10 ft. off the ground so the plastic
doesn't catch or melt.
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chemcam
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| Quote: Originally posted by elementcollector1 | Would you also like to burn your face off from molten iron? Thermite, once it gets going, is pretty much uncontrollable until it ends. And in my
experience, it's a stable mixture even under a blowtorch. A pen torch could possibly light it (2000 degrees what?) but if you had the pen torch, why
use the thermite?
This isn't about demonstrating to the kids, it's about surviving the wilderness. Calcium carbide's nice, but unless you have a lot of it, it's not a
useful source. Magnesium, pocket lint, and tinder are all reliable sources that can take a while to be used up, depending on your skill and usage.
I have only managed to ignite a thermite once in my lifetime, and even then it was insanely difficult. I have better materials now, but I have no need
for a thermite recently (having no metal oxides to work with yet). Maybe our compositions differ, but I doubt that they differ so much that yours is
so easy to light. |
I'm not talking an entire sandwich baggy full I mean like a 2"x2" plastic bag that jewelry comes in, not too dangerous there. Oh, I say pen torch and
thermite because it will take a long time to light wet wood with the torch and you may use up all the fuel. I guess it would be a bad idea to have
someone use it for the first time with children around, I just thought of that.. I am used to being extremely cautious around certain things so
thermite doesn't raise my hairs at all, other people may not be that way.
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Eddygp
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What about a small thermite with some cupric nitrate in too? Wonderful to start a fire with
there may be bugs in gfind
[ˌɛdidʒiˈpiː] IPA pronunciation for my Username |
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Mailinmypocket
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There's a neat trick you can do by wrapping some cotton (kept dry in a bag) with some steel wool, touching a 9v battery to the steel wool in proximity
to the cotton causes the small steel filaments to get hot and ignite the cotton. There's a YouTube video on it by a youtuber called
"crazyrussianhacker"
Another option would be some perchlorate or chlorate/sugar that you could mix at the time, to avoid carrying around energetic mixtures. I have lit
that in rainy wet conditions (not to start fires mind you) with a small lighter many times.
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Ral123
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That's the lamest of all. Imagine the cold outside, nasty wind, you're freezing your hands off to make preparations for the fire. You rely on a cold
9v battery(witch aren't famous for delivering high currents), that has been sitting for two years since last used, to ignite a steel wool in the cold
and windy and snowy/or high humidity. At least bic lighters are predictable. Isobutane is volatile even at -10.
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chemcam
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What about the Polystyrene and Gasoline -or- Acetone mixture? That stuff lights easily and it's not an inferno (as long as there is not excess
solvent!) so you won't burn your face off it you are smart about it. You would need an airtight container so the solvent doesn't evaporate, and
something to spark it with obviously.
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