How To : Make a Fire Snake from Sugar & Baking Soda
A fire snake, also referred to as a black snake or sugar snake, is a classic science experiment you can do right in your own kitchen using a baking soda and sugar mixture and a fuel to ignite the reaction.
When the baking soda gets hot, it makes carbon dioxide gas. The pressure from this gas pushes the carbonate from the burning sugar out, producing the snake reminiscent of popular intumescent fireworks.
This food-based chemistry experiment is not to be confused with the carbon snake , which uses concentrated sulfuric acid instead of baking soda. In either case, don't eat the resulting snake, and only touch it once it has cooled completely.
To make your own fire snake at home like in the video above, you'll need 10 grams of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate), 40 grams of sugar, and some type of fuel and a container to house the reaction in.
You can simply add the fuel to the mixture and light it on a smooth surface, but the reaction won't be as impressive . In this case, use a ceramic bowl packed with sand. The sand is doused with lighter fluid before putting the baking soda and sugar mixture on top.
To begin the experiment, add your sand to your bowl, then soak the sand with lighter fluid.
Mix the baking soda and sugar together, then pile it onto the soaked sand surface.
Next, just light it with a long-stick match or long-neck lighter. Keep some water nearby just in case you need to extinguish the fire.
As mentioned before, when the mixture burns, the baking soda gets hot, and it decomposes to release carbon dioxide gas. A lack of oxygen in the sugar from the combustion creates carbonate and water vapor. The pressure from the CO2 gas pushes this carbonate out to form the snake, which should continue growing for 20 minutes, give or take.
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It's fun but sometimes success sometimes fail. How should I correct it? I got spill ethanol at sugar and baking soda before burning. Or is it just because I spill ethanol on the sand surface until it is wet only? Or shouldn't I drop some ethanol when burning. Hope you can help me to solve it. Thank you.
Never EVER add flammable liquid to this experiment after the fire has been lit. People can and have been severely burned when that is done, even people standing some distance away. If you HAVE to do this demonstration, it would be best to be sure that any supply of flammable liquid is more than arms reach away, and better, in a different room, before you light the demonstration. Also, have a fire extinguisher handy.
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Homemade Black Snake Fireworks 1
Black snake fireworks are small, non-exploding fireworks that you ignite to push out a growing column of black ash. While you can buy these fireworks, they are easy to make using kitchen ingredients and a fuel.
You only need a few common household chemical for making black snake fireworks:
- 4 teaspoons powdered or confectioner sugar (sucrose)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda (sodium bicarbonate)
- lighter fluid or rubbing alcohol
- sand or dirt (optional)
Make Black Snake Fireworks
- Mix together the sugar and baking soda.
- Make a depression in sand or dirt, pour the mixture into the depression, and lightly cover it with a fine layer of sand. You could just use sugar and baking soda in a bowl, but it makes for a cool effect where the snake seems to push out of the ground!
- Dampen the soil and mixture with lighter fluid or rubbing alcohol.
- Light the fuel with a match or lighter. Once the sugar in the underlying mixture catches fire, the black snake will start to grow.
- The firework goes out on its own, but you can extinguish it with water or by covering it with dirt.
How Black Snake Fireworks Work
The chemistry of how black snakes work is a lot like baking (if you continue baking foods until they blacken). Baking soda is a leavening agent in the kitchen that makes baked goods rise by decomposing into sodium carbonate, carbon dioxide, and water vapor. In baking, other ingredients trap the carbon dioxide and water vapor bubbles. Heat makes these bubbles expand. In black snake fireworks, molten sugar traps the gas bubbles. The sugar also serves as a fuel and burns to release more carbon dioxide and water vapor.
The end result is a “snake” of carbon ash. If ethyl alcohol is the fuel, black snakes are non-toxic.
Related Projects
You can ignite calcium supplements for another safe and simple black snake firework.
Other types of snake fireworks use ingredients that are not safe outside of a fume hood in a chemistry lab.
- Sulfuric acid and sugar snake : This classic chemistry demonstration illustrates the dehydration of sugar by sulfuric acid. It’s basically a giant black snake firework. Because of the sulfuric acid, it’s best reserved for science classes.
- Pharaoh’s serpent : Pharaoh’s serpent is the name of the classic black snake firework. Igniting a pellet of mercury thiocyanate forms a brown “snake.” Black snakes you purchase at a fireworks store no longer use this chemical because of mercury toxicity. However, you might still see this reaction as a chemistry demonstration.
- Davis, T. L. (1940). “Pyrotechnic Snakes”. Journal of Chemical Education . 17 (6): 268–270. doi: 10.1021/ed017p268
- Miller, Thomas S.; et al. (2017). “Pharaoh’s Serpents: New Insights into a Classic Carbon Nitride Material”. Zeitschrift für anorganische und allgemeine Chemie . 643(21): 1572-1580. doi: 10.1002/zaac.201700268
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Black Fire Snake
Introduction: Black Fire Snake
In this Instructable I'll show you how to make a "Black Fire Snake". You can perform this classic science experiment with a number of items that you have at home or can buy in the local supermarket.
Important note: This experiment uses lighter fluid and fire. Always do this outside and if you are not an adult under the supervision of your parents!
Baking soda (10 gram)
Sugar (30 gram)
Lighter fluid (Zippo)
Step 1: Soaking the Sand
To start, we're going to soak the sand with lighter fluid. In principle you could immediately soak the mixture that we are going to make in the next step with lighter fluid, the reaction becomes the same but the result is a lot less impressive.
- Add your sand to your bowl.
- Soak the sand with lighter fluid.
Step 2: Mix It Up
- Mix the baking soda and sugar together.
- Pile it onto the soaked sand surface.
Step 3: Light It Up
One more time just to be sure: Experimenting is fun, but of course we don't want anyone to get injured. This experiment uses lighter fluid and fire. Always do this outside and if you are not an adult under the supervision of your parents! Always have a fire extinguisher nearby in case something goes wrong.
- Put the bowl we prepared outside.
- Light the mixture with a long lighter or a long match and watch the black fire snake be born.
How it works
when the mixture burns, the baking soda gets hot, and it decomposes to release carbon dioxide gas. A lack of oxygen in the sugar from the combustion creates carbonate and water vapor. The pressure from the CO2 gas pushes this carbonate out to form the snake, which should continue growing for 20 minutes.
Chemical reactions (With a little bit help of Wikipedia)
Three chemical reactions occur when the snake is lit. Sodium bicarbonate breaks down into sodium carbonate, water vapor, and carbon dioxide:[2] 2 NaHCO3(s) → Na2CO3(s) + H2O(g) + CO2(g)
Burning sucrose or ethanol (reaction with oxygen in the air) produces carbon dioxide gas and water vapor:[2] C12H22O11(s) + 12 O2(g) → 12 CO2(g) + 11 H2O(g)C2H5OH(l) + 3 O2(g) → 2 CO2(g) + 3 H2O(g)
Some of the sucrose does not burn, but merely decomposes at the high temperature, giving off elemental carbon and water vapor:[4] C12H22O11(s) → 12 C(s) + 11 H2O(g)
The carbon in the reaction makes the snake black. The overall process is exothermic enough that the water produced in the reactions is vaporized. This steam, in addition to the carbon dioxide product, makes the snake lightweight and airy and allows it to grow to a large size from a comparably small amount of starting material.
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