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Food

Chemistry In Pictures

Chemistry in Pictures: Blacklight Life Savers

by Manny I. Fox Morone
October 12, 2021
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A side-by-side comparison of a group of 5 donut-shaped Life Savers candies under ultraviolet light and under visible light. The ultraviolet light environment brings out very bright, pale colors that don't match up with their counterparts seen under visible light.
Credit: Brian Wagner

This Halloween, you might have some fluorescent foodstuff hiding in your haul of candy. Often, the dyes used in food products, like these Life Savers, are highly colorful under ultraviolet light (left) thanks to the dyes’ fluorescence—their ability to convert UV light to visible colors. Seeing their strong colors under visible light (right), Brian Wagner had a feeling Life Savers would look especially interesting under UV. So Wagner, a chemist who studies fluorescent supramolecular systems at the University of Prince Edward Island, put the candies in a dark place and turned on his portable UV flashlight, revealing this eerie glow.

Credit: Brian Wagner. Follow him @DrummerBoy2112 on Twitter and @fluorescent_chemist on Instagram.

Do science. Take pictures. Win money. Enter our photo contest here.

Click here to see more Chemistry in Pictures.

Chemical & Engineering News
ISSN 0009-2347
Copyright © 2024 American Chemical Society

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