How Do Glow Sticks Work? And How Are They Not Toxic?
Answer:
The chemistry is a little complicated so check out this site http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/glow_sticks... It is a very good explanation.
The sticks contain separated solutions of a fluorescent dye with Cyalume solution and hydrogen peroxide solution. When the sticks are cracked the solutions mix producing the chemilumencent reaction. I wouldn't drink it!
Everything is toxic to some degree.
Well I can tell you how they work. The process by which it works it chemluminesense or a kind of flourescense. Basically the two chemicals are mixed and when they are mixed they form carbon dioxide which excited the dye molecules. Basically In the molecular orbitals of the chemical system there are two electrons in the ground state. One spin up and one spin down, or one positive and one negative. The energy from the reaction will promote one electron from the ground state to the excited state. Then you will have a electron in the ground state as a positive and one in the excited state as a negative. Then as you know there are two ways that the electron can return to the ground state, as heat or nonradiative decay(light). Basically what happens is when the electron returns down to the ground state, it is transferred to what they call the triplet state, which is higher energy. When it goes to the triplet state the spin or charge flips. SO then there is a positive charge now in the triplet state. So therfore you have a positive charge in the triplet state and a positive in the ground state. Then it trys to return to the ground state but it goes very slow because you have two like charges repeling one another. That is why it glows and stays glowing for a long time. Basically because it takes longer to return to the ground state. You have two charges repeling one another which produces a high amount of energy or a large amount of light.
Oh and basically everything is toxic. It just wouldnt be toxic in small amounts. If you drank it you would get sick
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