Rainbow Fire Help

[rainbowfirehelp]

I am doing the Rainbow Fire Experiment and have come across a problem. Every chemical I try to burn has an orange flame. What are the flame colors supposed to be and what am I doing wrong? I dissolved the chemicals in the alcohol and even tried different amounts. Please help!
Thanks

[deleted-71588]

When you burned just the alcohol, what color did you get? If it is the same orange flame, then your isopropyl alcohol maybe too dilute or contain some other chemical that burns orange or you might be trying to burn too large a surface area so not enough oxygen reaches all of the combustion volume or you may have a problem with ambient light reflection.

Are you viewing the flame in a reduced light area? If not then, the ambient light can reflect off of the thermal boundary of the flame and affect your color perception. Additionally, the background color of what is behind the flame can affect your color perception as well. The experimental proceedure calls out:

Safety Note: This experiment requires adult supervision. Avoid breathing combustion fumes from this experiment. We suggest performing the experiment outdoors, in a well-ventilated area. The aluminum pan will get quite hot, so place it on a heat-resistant surface! Make sure that there are no flammable materials nearby. Be prepared for an accident: have a suitable fire extinguisher on hand just in case, and make sure that you know how to use it! You'll get the best pictures of the flames if the background is dark, so we suggest trying to do the experiment at twilight.

The base of an ethanol alcohol flame should be blue but it is very hard to see if there is a lot of tungsten or flourescent light sources. It has been too long since I burned either of the chemicals commonly referred to as isopropyl alcohols and then it was using a cotton wick which causes the flame to be yellow/orange.

You might want to read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borax. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnesium for the spectrum the metals in these compounds generate when they oxidize in flame.

CAUTION: The combustion fumes from some of these chemicals is quite irritating and can cause some serious health problems.