Ah, one of my favorite types of energetic material–pyro!! Call me a pyromaniac (but please don’t though?), because I just find pyro to be so cool (but actually VERY hot) and fun (but be safe kids)!
So what is pyro? Pyrotechnics are low explosives, so they do not detonate (although, they can unintentionally undergo detonation in certain conditions). They have a self-sustained highly exothermic reaction, which usually produces an effect such as gas, light, sound, and/or heat. This includes fireworks, signals, flares, smoke screen, colored smokes, flash bangs, thermite, and pyrotechnic initiators. They usually undergo a redox chemical reaction. With this, you have a fuel and an oxidizer, and the oxidizer is inclined to replace a component of the fuel in order to produce a desired outcome, or in this case, ~~EFFECT~~. Pyro usually does not produce hazardous fragments and have a low output pressure, generally falling in the 1.3 or 1.4 hazard classification.
What makes pyro so fun is that often times it is used to create an effect, like fireworks, flares, and smokes of different colors. And colors are pretty!
As pyrotechnics are a pretty broad topic, we will dive deeper into different types of pyro and the different chemical reactions that occur at a later date. This is just the very tip of the iceberg!
It Goes Boom 