Researchers Develop Environment Friendly Green Fireworks

Fireworks are generally used to celebrate big occasions across the world. There are fireworks making the skies colorful during Independence Day, Diwali, the Lantern Festival, and others. However, these pyrotechnic displays are known to release huge amounts of pollutants into the atmosphere, which in turn leads to severe air pollution. The latest study published in the ACS’ Environmental Science & Technologystates that the environmentally friendly fireworks tends to emit 15-65% less particulate matter into the air when compared to the traditional fireworks, thereby significantly helping maintaining air quality. The displays caused by fireworks also causes health problems such as respiratory diseases as high amounts of pollutants, particulate matter (PM), heavy metals,sulfur dioxide, and perchlorates, are released into the air.

The increasing number of air pollutants has resulted in many regions holding a complete ban on its use. However, as the firework displays plays an important role in majority of the traditional celebrations, the researchers along with the manufacturers are striving tocreatea more environmentally friendly pyrotechnics, such as sulfur-free propellantsand smokeless charges. The researchers have found these green fireworks to possibly emit fewer pollutants and result in low impact on air quality. The researchers Ying Li and his teammates collected data from the large fireworks display held in Shenzhenon October 1, 2019 on the occasion of Chinese National Day on to check for the positive impacts of green fireworks.

After carrying out in-depth analysis, the researchers found the emission to be PM2.5 or smaller even though 160,000 environmentally friendly fireworks were set off during the National Day. The data including wind speed, wind direction, temperature, and chemical composition of the fireworks helped calculate the size, path, and peak PM2.5values for the smoke plume resulting from the display. Later, the comparison between data at the PM2.5concentrations collected from 75 monitoring stations helped researchers conclude that the fireworks smoke plume showcased a narrow band that headed northward before completely dispersing, with peak PM2.5levels as per the assumptions. It could be concluded that the green fireworks produced smaller and shorter-lasting plumes. And also these fireworks showed 15-65% of the PM2.5emissions of a display through traditional fireworks. Even though PM2.5 is high as per the World Health Organization guidelines there are hopes that fireworks with low air pollutant emissions would soon be developed.