Glowsticks - How Do They Work?

Glowsticks are fun party supplies -Kids Love them! When sending out your party invitations , think of the interesting Chemistry involved with your party favors. Glow sticks work by a chemical reaction called 'chemiluminescence' which causes light to be generated. (That's a trivia question for some party games!) By breaking up the word "chemiluminescence" into 2 parts, chemi and luminescence we can better understand. Luminescence is emission of light not caused by a rise in temperature (the object emitting light stays cold). The light is released by atoms returning from 'excited (charged) state to normal 'ground' state. It means, an object which glows, first must absorb energy to get into 'excited state. That energy will be released (in form of light) by the object returning to the ground state of energy. The energy can be supplied in many ways, but in our particular case of glowsticks the energy is supplied by a chemical reaction (what makes the "chemi" in chemiluminescence). Typical glowsticks use a hydrogen peroxide solution (which is called the "activator"), a solution of phenyl oxalate ester. and a fluorescent dye (which makes the color). The activator is stored inside the long thin glass tube which is inside the glowstick. When the glass tube is broken by flexing the glow stick, the activator is released and the chemicals starts to react. Depending the chemicals used, this reaction can last for many hours. Heating the glowsticks will speed up the reaction, which will result in brighter light but will shorten the glow time. The reaction will slow down at low temperatures and the light will be dimmer, but the glow time will be longer.