“Ultraviolet flower” experiment

How to make a flower glow in the UV

Hav­ing trou­ble find­ing a present for a friend? We have the an­swer! Flow­ers that glow in the ul­tra­vi­o­let light! And you don’t have to waste mon­ey on ex­pen­sive ul­tra­vi­o­let paint. Do you want to know the se­cret? Then read our in­struc­tions.

Reagents and equip­ment:

  • any flow­ers with white petals;
  • util­i­ty knife;
  • vase;
  • wa­ter,
  • text high­lighter;
  • ul­tra­vi­o­let lamp or torch;
  • pipette or sy­ringe

Step-by-step in­struc­tions

Step 1

Pre­pare the paints: over a glass or vase rinse the rods of the text high­lighters with wa­ter (use a pipette or sy­ringe). The paints are washed out of the dyes, and we get a con­cen­trat­ed so­lu­tion.

Step 2

Pre­pare the flow­ers: cut the stems of fresh flow­ers with a sharp util­i­ty knife.

Step 3

“Col­or” the flow­ers: put the “vase” con­tain­ing the so­lu­tion and the flow­ers in a dark place for 24 hours. To en­sure that the ves­sels that nour­ish the plants don’t get blocked and so that the dye can freely rise up to the petals, cut the stems from time to time.

Pro­cess­es de­scrip­tion

The dye ris­es up the stem along with the wa­ter and ac­cu­mu­lates in the petals. Text high­lighters con­tain sub­stances that glow in ul­tra­vi­o­let light. This phe­nom­e­non is called flu­o­res­cence.

Safe­ty pre­cau­tions

This is a safe ex­per­i­ment, but you can wear gloves to avoid your hands get­ting stained.

Try it