A tip for glow sticks

[CyndiLooWho]

Most of us know to buy them at the dollar store and bring them with us. But did you know you can RECHARGE them? Just pop the used ones in the freezer overnight and voila! they work again.

We just tried this for the first time today. The kids got big glow sticks at school yesterday and they were dead by bedtime. Ds8 popped his into the freezer and just "cracked" it again this morning. It's working as good as new.

We'll be doing this at our condo when we get to WDW in June. And when we come back from camping with the scouts, too.

 

[spare+a_pair]

Thanks for the GREAT tip! How many times can they be frozen until they eventually give out?

 

[CyndiLooWho]

We don't know yet, but I guess we'll find out.

I have a big bag of glow sticks (not the skinny kind, but the nightlight kind) that I bought after Halloween for nothin'. I plan to see who long we can make that $1.25 bag of 25 last...

 

[xmlguy]

It's a myth that you can recharge glow sticks by freezing them. It is an irreversable chemical process, and the temperature doesn't reverse the reaction. Cooling does slow down the reaction. The light you observe after freezing and then breaking them is due to remaining unused hydrogen peroxide that you release anew. Once all the acid has been reacted, there's no amount of freezing that will bring it back. If you eliminate the freezing process and simply rebend the sticks, you would've got the same amount of light out of them. Cooling will make them glow longer, but dimmer. There's no free lunch.

 

[Jenny-momof3]

xmlguy is right.

 

[CyndiLooWho]

It's a myth that you can recharge glow sticks by freezing them. It is an irreversable chemical process, and the temperature doesn't reverse the reaction. Cooling does slow down the reaction. The light you observe after freezing and then breaking them is due to remaining unused hydrogen peroxide that you release anew. Once all the acid has been reacted, there's no amount of freezing that will bring it back. If you eliminate the freezing process and simply rebend the sticks, you would've got the same amount of light out of them. Cooling will make them glow longer, but dimmer. There's no free lunch.

Oh, well. I had heard and we tried it and it appeared to work. It sure made ds8 happy this morning.

 

[xmlguy]

Oh, well. I had heard and we tried it and it appeared to work. It sure made ds8 happy this morning.

It still is a good idea to freeze to extend the life, just for different reasons, so I think it was good of you to post your experience regardless.