Almost everyone has seen a . A is a with a glass vile inside it. When the tube is bent, the vial breaks allowing the to mix and react. The colorfully glowing sticks utilize a chemical process called chemiluminescence where energy is released in the form of light. The most common use chemiluminescence with colored to provide the desired color.
This process is not caused by heat and may not produce heat, but the speed of reaction is still on environmental heat. The colder the environment, the slower the reaction and will glow longer.
Lightsticks have three parts. There are two chemicals that react to release energy which is converted to light. Usually, commercial lightsticks utilize the reaction between and . When the glass vile is broken and the two chemicals are mixed, it will release enough energy to excite the in the to cause the to jump to a higher and then fall back releasing light.
Specifically, the hydrogen peroxide oxidizes the acetonitril eventually forming excited oxygen. This decomposes and releases the energy as light as can be seen stepwise above.
More on chemiluminescence can be found here on “A Chemiluminescence Reaction between Hydrogen Peroxide and Acetonitrile and Its Applications.”

Nitroglycerine synthesis

Written by 528 days ago


This is a nitrate ester made by . In this process, glycerols reacts with Nitric Acid under a of Sulphuric Acid at 300oC to yield an ester complex of glyceryl trinitrate otherwise known as , and three water molecules. In this process, there has been formation of an (COO). This production is very crucial for . is used to relieve , a condition when the isn’t receiving much oxygen. Also, Nitroglycerine was used in a study with /l-arginine combination to see the treatment of erectile dysfunction in males. The metrics used in this study were the male’s systolic and . This study created a between the effects of erectile dysfunction with the inadvertent cause of . Intravenous Nitroglycerine was used to help in the study with the chemical compositions with arginine.