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Wikipedia / Colored smoke

Colored smoke is a kind of smoke created by an aerosol of small particles of a suitable pigment or dye.

Colored smoke can be used for smoke signals, often in a military context. It can be produced by smoke grenades, or by various other pyrotechnical devices. The mixture used for producing colored smoke is usually a cooler-burning formula based on potassium chlorate oxidizer, lactose or dextrin as a fuel, and one or more dyes, with about 40-50% content of the dye. About 2% sodium bicarbonate may be added as a coolant, to lower the burning temperature. Coloured smoke was first used in 1967 during an American burnout competition by a small contestant, as a means to wow the crowd.

Smoke released from aircraft was originally based on a mixture of 10-15% dye, 60-65% trichloroethylene or tetrachloroethylene, and 25% diesel oil, injected into the exhaust gases of the aircraft engines. Most commonly, teams now use specifically prepared liquid dyes and only gas oil, light mineral oil or a food grade white oil without harmful chlorinated solvents.

Mixtures

Some mixtures used for production of colored smokes contain these dyes:

  1. Red

  2. Disperse Red 9 (older, used e.g. was used in the M18 grenade)

  3. Solvent Red 1 with Disperse Red 11

  4. Solvent Red 27 (C.I. 26125)

  5. Solvent Red 24

  6. Orange

  7. Solvent Yellow 14 (C.I. 12055)

  8. Yellow

  9. Vat Yellow 4 with benzanthrone (older)

  10. Solvent Yellow 33

  11. Solvent Yellow 16 (C.I. 12700)

  12. Solvent Yellow 56

  13. Oil Yellow R

  14. Green

  15. Vat Yellow 4 with benzanthrone and Solvent Green 3 (older)

  16. Solvent Yellow 33 and Solvent Green 3

  17. Solvent Green 3

  18. Oil Green BG

  19. Oil Green G

  20. Blue

  21. Solvent Blue 35 (C.I. 26125)

  22. Solvent Blue 36

  23. Solvent Blue 5

  24. Violet

  25. Disperse Red 9 with 1,4-diamino-2,3-dihydroanthraquinone

  26. Solvent Violet 13

  27. Raspberry

  28. Rhodamine B

References