Extracted from:

A Buyer's Guide for Aluminum Metal Powders

by
Ken L. Kosanke
PGII Bulletin 27 & 28 November, 1981 & December, 1982
[Back issues single and bound of the Pyrotechnics Guild International Inc. Bulle
tin
are available from the PGII. www.pgi.org ]
[scanned and you know what that means!]
1) The number one question concerns the definition of the very general descripti
ve
terms -- dark, light and bright. I think these are poor terms and their use shou
ld be
avoided. They are much too general and can mean quite different things to variou
s
people. These differences (between kinds of aluminum powders) can be very signif
icant. Even subtle differences, not detectable by eye or feel, can produce signif
icantly
different pyrotechnic effects (more on this later).
Dark USUALLY refers to very fine flake aluminum, with finer flake USUALLY appear
ing
darker. This is a consequence of light reflecting off the more numerous irregula
r particle
surfaces. However, an exception is "German dark" aluminum. Here most of the dark
color is from the presence of carbon, resulting from its manufacturing process m
ore on
this later). There are at least three grades of German dark, all appearing quite
dark, but
all having different particl sizes. Obviously in this case, darkness of appearan
ce is no
guide t particle size. It has also been reported in the literature that some ma
nufacturers
add carbon black to their products. Again, darkness is no guide to particle size
.
To MOST pyrotechnists, bright, not light, is the opposite of the attribute dark.
USUALLY, bright refers to flake aluminums, but the flakes are large enough (if f
ree of
carbon) to appear shiny (bright). Bright flake aluminum can still be very fine a
nd very
reactive.
Light USUALLY refers to atomized or finely ground aluminums. The particles of
aluminum have more of a 3-dimensional character than flakes. Unfortunately, ligh
t
atomized aluminum can be as dark appearing as dark flake aluminum.
Confusion can be avoided by substituting more descriptive terms, such as "flake"
and
"atomized", along with an indication of particle size, for the ambiguous dark, l
ight and
bright. Possibly the one exception I make is the use of the term flitters, which
are very
large flakes usually in the range of 8 to 14 mesh.