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Glowstick Twisters © 1984-
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Glowstick ingredients
This is information about how a Glowstick works and the ingredients which make up the glowstick, taken from unverified sources.
Reports are that this produces rather spectacular results. Ingredients are available to the public but the dyes are quite expensive.
The following information is provided as is and has not been tested or verified I assume no responsibility for the accuracy or the use of this information. Dye Ingredients:
Green -
Red -
CPPO -
35% hydrogen peroxide -
IInstructions -
Saturate solvent with dye and CPPO. Sonicate to help solvation. Start with about 50 mg dye (BPEA, DPA or rubrene) in 10 g solvent with 50 mg CPPO and 5 mg sodium salicylate. CPPO is limiting reagent.
Put small quantity about a teaspoon full in a small vial and add equal volume of hydrogen peroxide. Mix vigorously. There will be two phases. Avoid skin contact! Don’t cap tightly!
The oxidant is hydrogen peroxide ( found at chemists as an antiseptic) contained in a phthalate ester solvent. The concentration is very low, less than 0.5%. The fluorescing solution consists of a phenyl oxalate ester and a fluorescent dye. The dye used is one listed above.
The hydrogen peroxide oxidizes the phenyl oxalate ester to a peroxyacid ester and phenol. The unstable peroxyacid ester decomposes to the cyclic peroxy compound and more phenol in step
The cyclic peroxy compound is again unstable and gives off energy to the dye as it decomposes to the very stable carbon dioxide. The dye then radiates this energy as light.
An alternative chemiluminescence demonstration involves the H2O2 oxidation of lucigenin
( bis-
if you pour the glowstick liquid on clothes it is very difficult to remove as the person who asked how do i get glowstick stains out of my white leather Jordan XIII.
The only advice I can give is what I have used for getting oil out of Clothes, a full tin of white Gloss paint out of a brown carpet I know these are oil based products but the glowstick acts like an oil and what I use is ordinary washing up liquid.
You need to put a small amount of the washing up liquid on the glowstick liquid to start breaking it up, then start agitating the area, then very slowly drop by drop add water, agitate drop of water agitate, water and so on. The chemicals in washing up liquid don’t start becoming active until water is added, What ever you do don’t put water on the liquid it will seal it to the material and you will be very lucky if you get the stain out, this is why you have to add the water slowly “Caution” this method could cause some lightning of the colour of the material.
Things that the government document doesn't make all that clear: the fluorescent chemicals are based on a very toxic chemical called anthracene and the hydrogen peroxide is a powerful bleach. It does point out however that they are there in very small amounts so they aren't all that dangerous. There is a fair bit of useful and reliable information at
Thanks to Greg Dolly who tried the above chemicals for a glowstick and he reports that even though these ingredients do work. some of the weights and ingredients need to be adjusted to make it glow much brighter.
Greg Dolly ingredients for a glowstick.
I used the regular trichlorophenyl (TCPO) polymer instead of the kind that has the
carbopentyloxy molecule attached to the hydroxyl ring (CPPO). I don't know why the
commercial light sticks use carbopentyloxy-
I also modified the amounts of some chemicals to make it much brighter. Your recipe works fine, but I think whoever wrote the original source made a mistake with the amount of catalyst and solvent. First off, 5mg of sodium salycilate is waaaaaaaaaayyy too little, and 10g of solvent is waaaaaaaayy too much. Liquids aren't even measured in grams, they're measured in liters. So I think the original writer meant 10ml (instead of "g") of solvent, which _is_ correct! Second, the amount of sodium salycilate should be the _most_ out of the dye and TCPO. In 10ml of solvent, you need to add about a flat tablespoon size of the sodium salicylate.
Basically, here's the real way to do it really fast and easy:
1) Put in an Erlenmeyer flask (150ml size) these powders -
2) Add about 10-
3) Put rubber cap on flask and shake.
4) Take rubber cap off flask and add _one_ drop of concentrated hydrogen peroxide (35%).
5) Put rubber cap back on flask.
6) Turn off lights.
7) Shake solution again.
Sit and enjoy the light! ;-
© 2004 Greg Dolly
Things that the government document doesn't make all that clear: the fluorescent chemicals are based on a very toxic chemical called anthracene and the hydrogen peroxide is a powerful bleach. It does point out however that they are there in very small amounts so they aren't all that dangerous. There is a fair bit of useful and reliable information at