klers (video

From the ACS Press Room Celebrating with Green, Eye-catching Sparklers (video)

“Customizing the Appearance of Sparks with Binary Metal Alloys” ACS Omega

Sparklers can be a lot of fun — glimmering, fizzing and spitting out arcs of light from handheld sticks or tubes on the ground. But the metals that they’re usually made with limit what the sparks can look like. Now, researchers in ACS Omega report that rareearth metals in alloy powders can produce flashes that shift from golden to green and continuously branch. Watch a video of the exciting and eye-catching sparklers.

Youtube ID: 88fob_WGUbI

Around the world, sparklers are brought out for holidays and special events, providing celebratory pops of light. While their flames can span the colors of rainbow, the flares shooting out have been limited to dark red, gold or bright white light. Recently, Eike Hübner and colleagues found that burning powdered erbium (Er), a rare-earth metal, produces a new color-changing spark, shifting from golden-white to bright green. However, the green phase occurred for just a blip in time and wasn’t really noticeable. Another entertaining aspect of sparkler fountains are their branching sparks that burst apart repeatedly into multiple, smaller particles that flash. Commercial sparklers typically contain iron-carbon powders for this effect, but metal -metal alloys can also do this. So, Hübner and the team wanted to test whether rareearth metal-metal alloys could be used to create brand-new types of color-changing or branching sparks. The researchers pressed single-metal powders and metal-metal alloy powders, containing alkali, transition and rare-earth metals, one at a time into a flame. Rare-earth alloys provided more colorful sparks than the single -metal powders. For instance, ytterbium produced intense green explosive flashes. But when the ytterbium-copper (Yb-Cu) alloy was burned, it continuously released a shower of long sparks that switched from golden to deep green. Then the researchers combined rare-earth metal alloys with an ammonium perchlorate and nitrocellulose-based propellant to create smokeless fountains. A powdered version of neodymium magnets created the most attractive fountain with continuously branching sparks, with each initial “parent spark” shooting off many more sparks in just a fraction of a second. These tests yielded two promising sparkler materials, though the researchers caution that the recipes must undergo further safety testing before they can be used in commercial products.

The authors acknowledge publication funding from the Open Access Publishing Fund of the Clausthal University of Technology.

Report on Fall ACS Hybrid Council Meeting

The Fall 2022 National ACS Conference was held in Chicago from August 21 – 25. The meeting was still held in a hybrid fashion, although far more people attended in-person. 11,619 registrations were counted as of August 24, with 9,355 in-person and 2,264 virutal.

The ACS Council Meeting was also held in a hybrid format, allowing Council to meet either in-person at the meeting or electronically. Hybrid Council meetings were piloted at the Spring 2022 ACS Conference in San Diego, and things this fall seemed to go smoothly, at least from the remote side of things! Although I was unable to attend the conference in person due to the timing and the beginning of fall classes, I appreciated being able to participate remotely. In the usual fall business, several elections were held for committees. For the Council Policy Committee (CPC, Raychelle Burks, Anne M. Gaffney, Will E. Lynch, and Frankie K. Wood-Black were elected to a three-year term (2023 – 2025), while Lydia E. M. Hines was elected to serve through the end of 2023. For the Committee on Committees (ConC), William F. Carroll, Jr., Ella L. Davis, Carmen Gauthier, Thomas H. Lane, and Jason E. Ritchie were elected for a threeyear term (2023 – 2025). For the Committee on Nominations and Elections (N&E), Michelle V. Buchanan, Alan B. Cooper, Kelly M. Elkins, Ellene Tratras Contis, and Kathryn E. Uhrich were elected for a threeyear term (2023 – 2025). At least for the calendar year 2023, Council meetings will continue to be held in a hybrid manner. As of June 30, 2022, ACS reported $352.5M in total revenue and $308.2M in total expenses. Both of these were higher than the 2021 actual and ahead of the budget. Additionally, the new membership tiers of member, society affiliate, and community associate have shown to be successful, leading to an increase in membership so far in 2022. A special discussion was led by President Angela Wilson on “ACS for the Future”, posing the following questions: 1. What can be accomplished to enhance the ACS experience? 2. Why or how do you think it would make a difference? 3. Who would be tasked with leading this effort (e.g. a section, committee, division, or other)? The current CEO of ACS, Tom Connelly, plans to retire at the end of this year, and the Board is actively working on finding a successor.

I’ll join in the usual reminders that voting in the national elections is currently active, running from 9/2 – 10/21/22 at 12:00pm CST. Make sure that you use this opportunity to cast your vote and have your voice heard! Sincerely,

Rebecca Weber University of North Texas