Arsenic in Fireworks
We hope you enjoyed your 4th of July! While watching those vivid colors explode against the dark sky, have you ever thought about what fireworks are made of? Many of the bright colors that make fireworks so exciting are actually derived from metals. For example, Paris Green has a picturesque name and provides fireworks with a vibrant blue-green hue; however, it is really copper acetoarsenite, a toxic chemical. By law in the US, “fireworks must not contain arsenic sulfide, arsenate, and arsenite”. Generally, fireworks with more than 100 ppm of total arsenic (As) may be flagged for a sales ban in the US.
Brooks Applied Labs tests a wide variety of sample types! When we recently tested fireworks for As using the state-of-art Agilent 8800 ICP-QQQ-MS, we were able to show that historical results from another laboratory using older ICP-OES technology significantly over-estimated the As concentrations. Contact us for any type of specialty metals testing you might need!