Colored smoke

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Colored smoke is a kind of smoke created by an aerosol of small particles of a suitable pigment or dye.

Red Arrows air display team
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Red Arrows air display team

Colored smoke can be used for smoke signals, often in military. It can be produced by smoke grenades, or by various other pyrotechnical devices. The mixture used for producing colored smoke is usually a cooler-burning formula based on potassium chlorate oxidizer, lactose or dextrin as a fuel, and one or more dyes, with about 40-50% content of the dye. 2% of sodium bicarbonate may be added as a coolant, to lower the burning temperature.

Smoke released from aircraft can be based on a mixture of 10-15% of dye, 60-65% of trichloroethylene or tetrachloroethylene, and 25% of diesel oil, injected into the exhaust gases of the aircraft engines.

Some mixtures used for production of colored smokes contain these dyes:

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