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Safe home-made 'glowsticks'

  • 27-02-2009 3:40pm
    #1
    danlen
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 630 ✭✭✭


    hey guys,

    just wondering do ye hav any ideas on how to make some glowsticks in a safe and practical way. i want to do it wit some kids i teach. i've read things that say you can use sodium hydroxide amongst other things, although they all seem to include solvents with harmful vapours. any ideas on how kids could make these? or should i just get glow powder and mix it with a clear based substance?

    all ideas welcome!


Comments

  • #2
    Slav
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 789 ✭✭✭Slav


    Making it from inorganic substances is probably always going to be messy, smelly and generally not suitable to be demonstrated to kids.

    How about organic stuff like fluorescein? For example, make a grout by adding few drops of it to boric acid and plaster it over a stick or any other shape you like. Heat it until boric acid melts (don't overheat as fluorescein will decompose I think) and cool it down. It should glow now after being exposed to light (maybe even better results can be achieved with UV, not sure).

    Though this won't be a chemical experiment as no reaction takes place here and it's only the physical properties of boric acid that we use it's probably still more fun for kids then using the ready made stuff.


  • #3
    TessMcG
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1 ✭TessMcG


    I have been making homemade glow sticks for years. Very simple and completely non-toxic! I know that someone suggested fluorescene - which is non-toxic, but as you know, it will only fluorescence under a black light. You need something that is phosphorescent, not fluorescent. Here is what I do: Go to a store where they sell supplies for gardening and get these crystals that you add water to. They start out hard and then end up looking like pieces of jello. Make certain you get the kind with NO fertilizer. Hydrate some of the crystals and add glow powder (http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/product/1586) it is made of zinc sulfide. Coat the hydrated crystals in a small amount of glow powder and then fill a plastic test tube with the mixture. Now, expose the test tube to a light source and the turn out the lights! Voila' you have a glow in the dark stick!


  • #4
    Slav
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 789 ✭✭✭Slav


    TessMcG wrote: »
    I have been making homemade glow sticks for years. Very simple and completely non-toxic! I know that someone suggested fluorescene - which is non-toxic, but as you know, it will only fluorescence under a black light. You need something that is phosphorescent, not fluorescent.
    Someone suggested fluorescein because its molecule surrounded by boric acid glass is phosphorescent (though probably not for too long) thanks to the long-living excited triplet state. It may be an interesting demonstration when the solution is fluorescent under blue or UV illumination (and stops glowing immediately after the light is switched off) while when you mix it with boric acid and melt it, it starts behaving as a phosphorescent. By the way it could be a good demonstration of the Pauli Exclusion Principle and electron spin flip if the kids bother with that sort of things...


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