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FrozenGate by Avery

Glowsticks

No, no reasons for do it, at least if it's not in full sunlight, or in a hot ambient, it make no significant difference.
 





I'll give this warning about 405nm lasers and glowsticks.. Don't illuminate them at point blank range with high power builds. I LED'd a 12x last night doing it, from what I can only assume was back reflections, which is supported by the fact that I seriously degraded another 12x a while ago simply from testing various lenses.
 
Good advice to know qumefox!! Unfortunately My own experiments will have to wait as apparently My Nephew got to My glowsticks without telling Me. I will pick some up next time I go to town. I will of course report back when I get Them and see what happens when hit with the various wavelengths of lasers I've got on-hand! Sorry for the delay in testing the glowsticks.:yabbem:
 
@HIMNL9: I'm not sure this is right. H2O2 decomposes over time and in my school's Chemistry lab they keep it in darkened bottles because light increases its rate of decomposition. This might be just to reduce free radical initiation (where UV light busts covalent bonds and forms free radicals which react with everything they can find) or just reduce UV light's tendency to wreck everything but whatever the reason it is stored in darkened glass bottles.
Also, i'm pretty sure the TCPO (if i refer to "Phenyl Oxalate Ester" or similar, i mean TCPO, i was told it was called Phenyl Oxalate Ester before i was into NurdRage and that's what's stuck) doesn't decompose when light shines on it. I've had some used glowsticks in my room for almost 2 years now and they still flouresce when i hit them with a BluRay so either the molecule changes so it no longer becomes charged up by Hydrogen Peroxide but does still flouresce, or it isn't this.

@Eudaimonium: Why do you have Hydrogen Peroxide? Can i have some? I would reccomend keeping it in the dark, or in an opaque bottle... or at the very least in a darkened glass bottle.


@qumefox: Sounds like you have a lot of 12xs, can i have one? :yh:

And lastly, idk how much difference it makes but there are two types of glowsticks. The thin flexible ones and the thick ones which are more rigid. The only difference between them that is of any importance is that in the thin flexible ones the H2O2 vial extends the length of the stick, whereas in the thicker ones there is a 2-3cm vial that is suspended in the liquid. OP, which were you using?
 
@ Jai: no, it's not the fluorescent dye that decompose, is one of the others elements .... ambient light is insufficent for decompose the H2O2 inside the sealed vial in the glowstick enough for make it non working, also in days, where instead these glowsticks (or, at least, the ones i had), if left for some days at ambient light, was not working when i broke the vial.

Anyway, it's easy to see, if you have an used one to throw away, cut it, place the liquid in a bottle, and add some H2O2, if the liquid glow again as new and stay for some time, then it's the H2O2, if instead it glow very weak or nothing at all, it's the rest.

Also, remember that the process in these videos is one of the ways for make chemioluminescence, but not the only one (take as example the "lucipherine/lucipherase" mix that fireflies uses), and we don't know exactly what and how much they place in the glowsticks .....
 
Ahhh... i see! That's interesting.

Unfortunately, Hydrogen Peroxide is not so easy to get here after the tube bombings in which it was used.

Eudaimonium, i'll trade a pack of glowsticks for some high concentration H2O2. I tried taking some from a glowstick once just for a laugh and for some reason they'd reversed the components so the flourescent dye was in the vial and the H2O2 was on the outside... *sigh*. I still have the vial of flourescent dye on my shelf so... if anyone can think of anything fun to do with it, much appreciated :).
 
Yes, i had the same difficult at the start, for find H2O2 in decent concentrations from pharmacies and chemicals resellers ..... searched a lot of places and sites ..... then i discovered just casually that here is freely sold in colours/paints shops (not "hospital" purity, but still 35%/130vol) for bleaching/whitening .....

Not sure if this happens everywhere, but worth the try to ask them ;)



EDIT: tube bombs ? ..... LOL, that damn thing is so sensitive that sometimes blows just for an intense light flash, how can someone be so stupid to use it for tube bombs ? ..... it can risk to blow in your hands just closing the tube cap .....
 
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I can't remember what i want it for now, so i guess i'll try that when i remember.

I don't mean like pipe bombs. I meant bombings on tube trains... you call them metro or underground trains or something. Suicide bombers used it in combination with flour as a reducing agent to make bombs which they used to kill people on trains. There were several bombings that took place in one day in 2004, then there were some that went wrong a few years later and didn't go off. Since then there've been huge issues about terrorism and such. It's pretty unpleasant for us amateur chemists and pyrotechnics, but i guess it's all for the best.
 
Well, the first difference would be in the way that there is a larger volume of chemicals in the big thick ones so it would probably take longer to denature them. The second would be the way that in the thick ones convection currents (if any) would be easier to establish as there is more space for the fluids to move. Finally, in the thick ones the vial is able to move back and forth so you would be guessing where it was when you hit it with the laser.
 
@JaiNobeZ all that is true. I was more wondering if the chemistry was different in any way. It would take longer as the larger volume of liquid will absorb more of the lasers energy before reaching the vial.
 
Hmm... didn't think about that. If the OP was still around it would be helpful if he could answer:

1) What size of glowstick he was using
2) What WL of laser he was using
3) Whether when a BluRay was shined on it it still flouresced
4) Whether he repeated this more than once and got the same result (and whether it's possible the glowstick was already too old or denatured to work)
And, just out of curiousity, why he tried this in the first place...
 
Well I finally got around to testing this out. Sorry for the delay.:yabbem:

Test Laser: PHR 405nm @ 110ma
Test Time: 10 minutes
Glow Stick: 4" Blue
Test Results: Glow stick Worked after cracking the Vial

Test Laser: 445nm @ 500ma for test
Test Time: 5 minutes
Glow Stick : 4" Blue
Test Results: Glow stick Worked after cracking the Vial

Blue was the only color sticks I had to test, but I don't think that color would matter since the premise was the H2O2 was being broken down by the Laser Wavelength. Someone can run the test to verify My results or not as the case may be.
 
^ cause the fainting of the glowstick is due to a slow degradation of a chemical. you need to make a comparative test, for check if it degrade or not, and not just a work/non-work test, sorry. (mad scentist lab syndrome, i know :p :D)

Get 2 identical glowsticks, keep one sealed as reference, expose the other to the light (laser or daylight/sunlight) for a certain time, then break the vials in the same moment, and compare the glowing time duration and intensity of the exposed one with the reference one ..... this is the only way for see if there is any degradation, and for quantify it, probably.
 
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