To make these loud explosions, which are usually accompanied by a bright white flash, firework manufacturers use mixtures of perchlorate, a different kind of explosive than black powder.

The first ingredient of any firework is the ancient explosive black powder. It was discovered by Chinese alchemists more than a thousand years ago, and the recipe has been virtually unchanged in ...

New Year and fireworks. Pop! Bang! Whooo! Boom! We love them. These are the sounds of celebration. Although the basic recipe and techniques used in preparing the black powder (gun powder) in ...

LiveScience explains that when you light the fuse on the outside of the fireworks’s thick tube, the flame ignites a pouch of black powder inside known as the lift charge, which causes the shell ...