Why Do Some Butane Lighters Have Green Flames?

It's hard to miss it when someone fires up a torch lighter and the flame comes out green. These flashy little devices use some chemical trickery to produce this effect. The way it works is by exploiting the fact that every chemical has a spectrum that it produces when it burns. The dominant color in this spectrum is the one you see with your eyes. Fireworks make great use of this.

Whenever you burn something, the color of the flame is dictated by the chemicals that are burning. This is why, for instance, some magazine papers will burn at different colors when you first throw them into a campfire or woodstove. The chemicals on the paper burn at a different color for a second before they're consumed. Whenever something has a lot of different chemicals in it, the dominant chemical will lend its color to the flame.

This copper adds nothing any more toxic to the flames, so these lighters are safe. Before you go get a chemistry set and start trying to make your own colored flames, however, realize that adding the wrong chemicals to a flame can make it toxic. Never try to do this yourself. The parts of the lighter that produce the green flame are integrated into it in a way that makes them safe to use.

There are some of these lighters that are advertised as being cooler than a regular butane torch-in the heat sense, not the sense that they're more hip-and some cigar smokers gravitate to them for this reason. Check the documentation on the lighter that you're looking at regarding this. If the flame is designed to be cooler, there will be some engineering involved. You can make a cheap green lighter, however, so you need to make sure you know what you're buying and that's really what you're looking for.

There are other ways that you can make colored flames for candles and other purposes. Generally speaking, however, burning anything add materials to the flame that you may not want in it. The torches that burn with green flames are entirely safe, however. It is not safe, however, to drop anything into the flame of your torch to get it to burn a different color. In some cases, you may end up obstructing the jets and causing damage to the mechanical devices within the torch or you may end up causing a fire hazard by dropping something into the torch's flame that will cause it to flare up a great deal. If you want a colored flame, by a torch that's made to produce it.