Chemical Reaction Of Glow Sticks

Glow sticks are able to emit light when two chemical elements are mixed together. Because the glow stick has a tiny and hard container inside the flexible outer container, each container has one of the solutions. The sticks contain a dye along with the chemicals, which creates an exothermic reaction inside the sticks. The chemicals include a mixture of the dye and diphenyl oxalate, and the other is hydrogen peroxide. When mixing the peroxide with the combo of the dye and oxalate, or phenyl oxalate, a chemical reaction takes place, which yields two moles of phenol and one mole of peroxyacid ester. The ester then decomposes into carbon dioxide which releases energy which causes the dye to release a proton. The structure of the dye determines