Glow sticks... again!

[Arthur Dent]

Sorry to bring this topic again, but I recently came into a batch of those small "bracelet-type" glowsticks. it was the unused remains of a party, about 100 of them.

 

So I thought to myself "cool, i'll be able to retrieve the individual chemicals from these and put them to good use". The H2O2 is always very useful in high concentrations to precipitate the iodine in a solution, i'll have a bunch of different dyes I can use for my future plans for a nitrogen laser, and I know that TCPO is hard to make and expensive (I have basically no use for it, but heck, if I ever need it...)

 

So I decided to start "disassembling" these little glowsticks, always being careful and wearing goggles and gloves, because I know that I don't want H2O2 spilling on my fingers or in my eyes! EEk! I was very careful with the x-acto knife because the extremely thin glass tube containing the dye look so fragile.

 

I opened 10 of them and was disappointed by the results, the walls of the plastic tube are rather thick and fit the glass tube rather snugly, so the content of H2O2 for each plastic tube is rather minuscule, barely 0.5 ml per stick. So If I go through all of them, i'll probably end up with 45/50 ml at the most! Mmhhh. not a good start.

 

So I have 10 sealed glass capillary tubes filled with the fluorescent dyes, and my intention is to keep the various colors together and try to find some way to harvest their content. I'll also save a few of the glass capillary tubing, it's always a useful in a lab.

 

But first off, I just want to make sure what chemicals I'm dealing with, because i've seen various threads and several different "chemical" mixtures for glowsticks. Please correct me if I'm wrong but here goes:

 

1) The outer plastic tube contains 27% H2O2

 

2) The inner glass capillary tube contains Diphenyl Oxalate and the dye (for example 9,10-bis(phenylethynyl)anthracene for the yellow ones)

 

That's it I believe, are there other chemicals I should be aware of?

 

Is there a way to separate the Diphenyl Oxalate from the dye?

 

I have see the larger "rave type" glow sticks that have a diameter of 10mm, do these have larger quantities of H2O2?

 

Sorry if this has been addressed previously, but I just want to make sure the reward is worth the effort because so far, the yield is rather minimal...

 

Robert

Edited July 18, 2010 by Arthur Dent

[Moontanman]

Well I have to say if what you are looking for is H2O2 then you are looking in the wrong place. The drug store sells it all day long in liter sized bottles to me the various dyes would be more interesting and makign them glow again is really cool.

 

I have to say that glow sticks are uber cool, i keep several around all the time, they are really good in night time scuba diving, surf fishing, sex, the list goes on and on!

[Arthur Dent]

Of course, I know that H202 can be bought at the drug store or even at the dollar store, 500 ml for a buck. But that's 3% solution in water... what i'm looking for is the higher concentration Hydrogen Peroxide, the 27% to 32% stuff that is really hard to find (I checked several hair products shops/pool supplies shops in my region and no one carries that stuff).

 

And I know that H2O2 is NOTORIOUSLY hard (and dangerous) to attempt to distill, since concentrated H2O2 has this nasty habit of exploding when submitted to high heat! I just need some of the more concentrated stuff because some precious metal salvaging processes call for concentrated H2O2.

 

As for the dyes, you haven't lived before you have seen a nitrogen laser excite a fluorescent dye tank that starts "lasing" the most magnificent colors you can imagine! One of my cold autumn days projects! Check this cool video:

 

 

 

Robert

Edited July 18, 2010 by Arthur Dent