Idea for UV Reactive Fog Fluid

[DMXUser]

Calling all Professional Chemists and Back Stage Engineers..lol

I'd like to try to create UV Reactive Fog Fluid.

I understand the potential for creating a toxic environment by altering fog fluid.

Any additive to a fog fluid can go through a vast chemical change(s) and reaction and has the potential of becoming toxic after being flash heated and pressurized by a fog machine.

I had an idea to make UV Reactive Fog Fluid. Use Tonic Water in place of Distilled Water.

Tonic Water naturally reacts with UV light, therefore by replacing the Distilled Water Component with Tonic Water (after allowing the Tonic to become stale and lose its carbonation) and adding Glycol Element.



Thoughts?

 

[techieman33]

It's not something I would reccomend messing with. Aside from all the potential for creating some kind of toxic gas which I'm not qualified to even guess at. A big problem will be that tonic water has sugar in it. That sugar can clog things up. And it burns at ~350*F. A fog machines heating element can be over 400*F. So all that residue that builds up will produce some nasty smoke and could start a fire. Then what are you going to do after the show is over and everything is covered in trace amounts of this UV reactive fluid? The whole space could light up the next time you use UV light.

 

[RonHebbard]

It's not something I would recommend messing with. Aside from all the potential for creating some kind of toxic gas which I'm not qualified to even guess at. A big problem will be that tonic water has sugar in it. That sugar can clog things up. And it burns at ~350*F. A fog machine's heating element can be over 400*F. So all that residue that builds up will produce some nasty smoke and could start a fire. Then what are you going to do after the show is over and everything is covered in trace amounts of this UV reactive fluid? The whole space could light up the next time you use UV light.

And the AF of M players in the pit will likely have several problems with it.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

 

[almorton]

This suggests that heating quinine to high temperatures might be sub optimal.

 

[Malabaristo]

If this was possible to do safely, I suspect Wildfire would already be selling it.

Fog machines are tuned for specific fluid mixes. The warnings that manufacturers put in their manuals about not using other fluids aren't just because they want to sell more of their branded fluid. Even using something that would be safe to use in another fog machine can cause harmful byproducts if used outside of its design parameters*. Adding anything else at all to the fluid is just asking for health problems.


*Obviously there is a lot of overlap in mixes from different manufacturers and there are 3rd party products designed to match different machines, so the rule of only using manufacturer-specific fluid isn't absolute. It's just that using anything else should involve research and verification.