Is it possible to make water glow

Tips and Warnings. Related Articles. Article Summary. Method 1. Pour tonic water into a clear container. Believe it or not, plain old tonic water glows under a black light — quite brightly, as well. You can add it by itself or dilute it with water.

However, the more water you add, the dimmer it will glow. Tonic water is available at most local stores and supermarkets for just a few dollars. Be sure to get tonic water, not club soda or soda water.

The bottle should say "with quinine" or something similar. Shine a black light on the tonic water. All you need to do to get tonic water to glow bright is to illuminate it with a black light. Be sure to dim the lights in the room before you do this or it will be more difficult to see the glowing effect. Black lights are available from specialty party stores like Spencer's, etc. Don't worry about drinking the tonic water. Making tonic water glow with a black light makes it look very strange, but it doesn't make it poisonous, radioactive, or harmful to drink in any other way.

However, tonic water is often high in calories and sugar, so enjoy it sparingly. When ultraviolet light from the black light which humans can't see hits the phosphors, they convert it into a form that humans can see, producing the glow. Method 2. Purchase and test out highlighters to see if they glow. Not all highlighters have the glow-in-the-dark quality produced under a blacklight, so draw with them on white paper first and run a black light over to see if they do.

You can use any color, but yellow is the most likely to glow in the dark consistently. Any brand of highlighter should work, but you can try neon colored markers of a non-highlighter variety as well. It is easiest to see if they glow in a room that is completely dark, allowing for no light pollution.

Fill a clear container with water. Tonic water isn't the only substance that contains light-producing phosphors — plain old highlighter markers work in a similar way as well.

Start as before by filling a clear container like a glass jar with water. Note that this method will ruin your highlighter marker — it won't work when you're done. Take the ink tube out of the highlighter. If you just drop a highlighter into a jar of water, it won't bleed ink very quickly through the strip of felt at the tip. Instead, you'll want to take the entire ink tube out. To do this: Uncap the highlighter.

Use a pair of pliers or your hands if you don't mind getting messy to pull the felt out of the tip. Use pliers to pry off the bottom of the marker. Carefully pull the ink tube out, taking care not to spill or mark your clothing. Place the felt stick and ink tube into the jar. Drop the felt, the ink tube, and any other ink you can get out of the marker into the water.

The ink should bleed into the water, changing its color. Cut or break the ink tube if needed to get the ink out. Mix the water well so that the color is even. You can leave the ink tube and felt in the water when the ink is done mixing or you can fish them out — it's up to you.

Shine a black light at the water. Observations and results When you added a few drops of bleach to the tonic water, did it stop fluorescing under the ultraviolet black light? You should have clearly seen that the tonic water glowed a brilliant, bright blue color when you put it under the ultraviolet black light before adding bleach.

This is because the invisible ultraviolet light from the black light is absorbed by the quinine in the tonic water, and this excites the quinine. When the quinine becomes unexcited, it releases visible blue light that we see.

After adding and mixing in a few drops of bleach with the tonic water, however, it should have stopped glowing. Bleach is an oxidizing agent and can disrupt and break certain chemical bonds specifically carbon—carbon double bonds. It is in these chemical bonds that the quinine absorbs the ultraviolet light, so by adding bleach to the tonic water it makes the quinine unable to absorb ultraviolet light anymore, and so it can no longer emit blue light.

Cleanup You can pour the very diluted bleach down a drain. Thoroughly clean anything that came in contact with the bleach and rinse your hands. This activity brought to you in partnership with Science Buddies. Already a subscriber? Sign in. Thanks for reading Scientific American. Create your free account or Sign in to continue.

See Subscription Options. It make beautiful glowing flowers! Glow Powder : Make true glowing water by either adding phosphorescent glow powder to the water or placing it below a clear container holding the water.

Remember to charge the powder with a strong light source ideally the Sun or a black light before turning out the lights. A good powder keeps glowing a full day. Dinoflagellates produce glowing blue tides. You can buy these creatures online or visit the ocean to see them in their natural habitat.

The following will not work without one. You can find many different types of UV black lights online from ones that simply fit into your original light fitting too standalone units that plug into the wall. Some of the following science tricks can be quite messy so be certain to wear suitable clothes and protect your workspace. Also, some but not all of the following are edible. However be extremely careful not to consume the ones stated and if you use common sense, you'll be just fine. Now let's make some awesome water and just glow with the flow no pun intended!

The first method to make water glow is as simple as getting hold of some standard tonic water. If you look at the ingredients on the bottle, you will see that it has an ingredient called quinine or quinine hydrochloride and this is the ingredient that makes the water glow under UV light. Hold the bottle close to the UV light in a dark room and watch the water glow a pale blue colour! Tip: experiment with different brands of tonic water as some may contain stronger concentrations of quinine resulting in a brighter and more vivid glow.

A great use for this trick as tonic water is perfectly safe to consume would be to fill your drinks with tonic water at your next party to give your guests a spooky surprise. The second method to make water glow is using something called "drain tracing dye" which is used by plumbers to detect leaks and the flow of waste water. You should be able to get this from your local plumbing store or DIY store in a small jar. It's chemical name is fluoresceine. When you open it up, it looks like a lot of small maroon colored grains.

Use either tweezers or your fingers it is messy to take a pinch of the grains and drop them into the water. Stir well. Amazingly, this is all you need to dye over a liter of water you can always add more for a more vivid colour. This method will produce a vivid green glow when exposed to UV light.

Note: This method is NOT edible so do not consume the water. The dye can stain clothes and other objects it touches. Be careful to prevent it from spilling.

The final method to make water glow is possibly one of the easiest to reproduce however the process is quite messy so make sure you wear suitable clothes and protect your work area. This method also has many applications. First experiment with different brands of highlighters as not all of them will work.

You can see if it works by writing on a piece of paper and it should glow vividly under the UV light. If it works, use a pair of needle nose pliers and pull the tip out from the body of the highlighter.