Making luminol from household chemicals

posted Oct 17th 2011 9:01am by
filed under: chemistry hacks

What to make your own chemiluminescent material? Check out this process that uses common household goods to synthesize luminol. You’ll need some lab equipment, and [NurdRage] mentions some precautions to take as luminol is not itself toxic, but some of the fumes and intermediary chemicals found during the process are.

Start by cutting up some vinyl gloves and boiling them with some rubbing alcohol to extract diethyl hexyl phthalate. After filtering, that gets boiled with water and some drain cleaner. The goal here is to continue the process until you have pure phthalic anhydride. Almost done? Not even getting started. This is a very complicated process, but fascinating to watch. After the break you’ll find the full video, or a five-minute abridged version for those that just want a taste of this experiment.

When we looked at the quantum dot manufacturing process a couple of days ago we asked for more chemistry hacks. This is exactly what we were talking about and are thankful that [Rob] sent in the tip. Keep them coming!

Short version:

Long version:



23 Responses to Making luminol from household chemicals

  • Hephaix says:
    October 17, 2011 at 10:29 am

    Breaking bad?

    Reply Report comment
  • Alex says:
    October 17, 2011 at 10:37 am

    So… What is luminol?

    Reply Report comment
    • Rob Wentworth says:
      October 17, 2011 at 11:05 am

      Luminol is the glow-in-the-dark stuff used in Glow Sticks, which glow when mixed with Hydrogen Peroxide released by breaking the internal glass vial (or by mixing more peroxide into a used-up glow stick).

      Luminol is also used on police crime dramas (Dexter, etc.) to detect hidden blood spatters when spayed with Luminol and exposed to UV light.

      Reply Report comment
      • David says:
        October 18, 2011 at 5:20 am

        No and no. Luminol isn’t used in glow sticks. It also doesn’t need UV light to emit a blue glow when reacting catalitically with the Iron ions in blood. I suggest you consult Wikipedia for further information on the reaction mechanisms.

      • Rawrr says:
        October 22, 2011 at 10:25 am

        Wow, you almost sound intelligent until you quote Wikipedia as a legit source.

      • Rob Wentworth says:
        October 22, 2011 at 4:33 pm

        David — What supporting evidence do you have to dispute my claims?

        Actually, some glow sticks DO use luminol, and some use oxalates instead, depending on what color you want. Also, on CRIME DRAMAs (i.e. fiction) they DO use UV light to show the luminol. Dexter is one such show that “mis-uses” luminol in such a fashion.

        Don’t be such a punk, dude!

        vvvvv (see below) vvvvv

  • triton says:
    October 17, 2011 at 11:03 am

    It is a white to slightly yellow crystalline solid that is soluble in most polar organic solvents, but insoluble in water. its what CSI uses to find blood, reacts to the iron

    Reply Report comment
  • kpet says:
    October 17, 2011 at 11:38 am

    Great synthesis !

    Reply Report comment
  • Greg Detzky says:
    October 17, 2011 at 12:00 pm

    I would see an other chemical hack in similar manner as this one about making photopolymer at home to be used in a DIY 3D printer based on projector (seen some months ago). I think that I am not alone with this desire :-).

    Greg

    Reply Report comment
  • Kalleguld says:
    October 17, 2011 at 12:05 pm

    I’m not much of a chem nerd, but it is nice to see what the other hackers are up to :) Keep up the goo work, hackaday

    Reply Report comment
  • Skeltorr says:
    October 17, 2011 at 5:00 pm

    Dude, clean your lab.

    Reply Report comment
  • KillerBug says:
    October 18, 2011 at 12:10 am

    Neat…I bet he has a method for making Lysergic acid diethylamide using things he found at the local auto parts store!

    Reply Report comment
  • Dave says:
    October 18, 2011 at 12:34 am

    Great work, seems pretty straight forward to me :) lol

    Reply Report comment
  • lurker says:
    October 18, 2011 at 2:02 am

    Neat! Pretty similar to the to a common o-chem lab, except that instead of starting with phthalic anhydride it is prepared from “homemade” o-phthalic acid. If anyone wants to know where he got this one from, check out sciencemadness – nurdrage is a member and likely got the idea from one of the threads discussing rubber gloves and shower curtains as a source of phthalates… Hopefully he doesn’t post a video on making qualludes, the intent of many of the threads contributors…

    Almost completely OTc, except for the hydrazine sulfate – You’ll need to buy this one from a photographic supplier or a chemical distributor… OTC if you have one in town, but it ain’t gonna be in town unless your town a big city… OTC if you figure that although you’ll probably have to special order it, the only issues are an ORM-D sticker and packing list.

    …Still fuckin cool though – Moreso when you realize how cheap it is to make and that you can use a huge variety of dyes to color its emissions.

    Reply Report comment
  • Fallen says:
    October 18, 2011 at 4:06 am

    Impressive :)

    Reply Report comment
  • Nick says:
    October 23, 2011 at 7:05 pm

    would luminol react if sprayed onto plain mild steel?

    I work in an area where we try to detect pitting corrosion through aluminium and nickel coatings. A job normally done with copper sulhpate (it plates on Fe not on Ni or Al)

    It would be perfect if you could cover a wide area nickel coating and the bits that glowed were the pits that had breached all the way through to the steel substrate!

    I’d love to know if anyone could tell me whether Luminol glowed on contact with steel.

    Reply Report comment
    • Nick says:
      October 23, 2011 at 8:09 pm

      Update:

      I tried with .5g of luminol, 200ml of demin water, 15g of NaOH and mixed 10ml of that solution in with an equal amount of 3% H2O2.

      It glowed impressively with blood but no reaction with copper, mild steel, or slightly corroded steel.

      If anyone has any ideas, let me know at nickattech-solutionsdotcomdotau

      Reply Report comment
  • Syrus says:
    October 24, 2011 at 4:38 am

    Can this go ka-boom?

    Reply Report comment
    • Rob Wentworth says:
      October 24, 2011 at 12:00 pm

      Organic chemistry like this is very hard. Most “kaboomie” things are actually very easy, if used the same day. Making them pure enough to store safely is the hard part. When I was a kid I borrow a book from the ELEMENTARY SCHOOL LIBRARY called “A Boy’s Book or Explosives” targetted at 12-yr old boys. It told how to make nitroglycerin, fulminates, and stuff from simple household ingredients like used in the luminol video.

      Back in the day, kids could buy dynamite at the hardware store, for blasting stumps (or for “fishing”).

      Someday we may be “protected” from dangerous things like sharpened sticks (or pencils). Then we can watch hackaday videos on how to sharpen a stick by rubbing it on a rock. ;-)

      Reply Report comment

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