Chm 110 Week 3 Chemical Reactions

Glow Sticks Chemically React

Melissa Fernandez

CHM 110

October 19, 2015

Zamir Deen

Glow Sticks Chemically React

The glow stick is a fun light up the stick that can be found easily in popular retail stores worldwide. Children hang glow sticks around their neck to brighten themselves up while trick or treating down dark streets during Halloween. Go to any popular amusement park at night and glow sticks are displayed as a popular sales item. Children are attracted to their bright, colorful glow as well as the various colors available for purchase. A glow stick is a plastic tube that is manufactured to be used once and disposed of. When a child bends a glow stick to activate the bright glow, they are making a chemical reaction inside the plastic stick. This paper will examine how a glow stick’s chemical reaction brightens up the night.

A glow stick is a tube that contains chemicals isolated from each other. When the chemicals form together, they produce a light energy. This process is known as Chemoluminescence. Hydrogen peroxide solution is stored in a separate glass tube located inside the glow stick. Once the stick is bent, the glass breaks and mixes inside the plastic tube filled with diphenyl oxalate. The diphenyl oxalate is oxidized by the hydrogen peroxide. This mixture produces an unstable compound1, 2 dioxetane dione. The dioxetane dione is an unstable compound. The compound easily decomposes into carbon dioxide, which allows energy to release. Different colored dyes are used to make the chemicals different colors (Chemical reactions, 2013).

Chemoluminescence can cause the molecules inside the glow stick to absorb the energy given off by the decomposition of 1, 2 dioxetane dione. This absorption puts the molecules into an excited state. When the electrons return to their original state of energy, they lose their excess energy in the form of photons of light (Glow sticks, 2015).

The chemical reaction that occurs between the diphenyl oxalate and the...