This Youtube video has been floating around for a while, allegedly showing the viewer ways to make glowsticks of various colors in their own home. I’m curious as to how dangerous any of these chemicals are? While I certainly wouldn’t drink any of them as a matter of course, I wonder if any have toxic fumes or are harmful to the touch, and equally important if the advice in the video is legitimate and not intentionally malicious or negligent.
For the record, this user has numerous science-ish videos and there doesn’t seem to be much of a fuss raised over them, though some of them I definitely have no interest in trying, such as his video on how to remove lithium from a AA battery… :dubious:
Here’s a partial list of chemicals involved, culled from the transcript:
diethyl phthalate
9,10-bis(phenylethynyl)anthracene
bis(2,4,6-trichlorophenyl)oxalate
sodium acetate (or sodium bicarbonate or sodium salicylate)
hydrogen peroxide
9,10-diphenylanthracene
Rhodamine B
Well I’d probably advise doing any chemical fucking around under a fume hood (or outdoors while wearing a gas mask). IANAChemist, though, so I can’t tell you for sure whether the compounds are breathable-innable.
I know that anthracene (and the closely related phenanthrene) and their derivatives are widely considered highly carcinogenic. Not familiar with the particular derivatives mentioned, but just to sound a cautionary note there.
Like anything else involving somewhat nasty chemicals, the danger is really in your handling and ventilation of the work area. Anthracene is indeed bad news as detailed on the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) (which is a PDF).
The other chemicals are mildly bad, but nothing worse than the chemicals you might find stored under a household sink. I’m sure you did catch the part at the very beginning of the video, however, where it mentions that doing this will result in you spending far more money and creating far more of a hazard then if you just buy the glow sticks off-the-shelf.