Glow sticks are widely used for different purposes all over the world. Especially in military they are of immense use. Many departments in the military are using them. Less weight, small size, single source of energy, non fire producing factor made them so helpful in many rescue operations. Many of us are not aware of the fact that those glow sticks are invented by military people.
In the year 1962, researchers at China Lake Naval Weapons center in California began to develop some non fire producing chemical substances which have long lasting luminous intensity and efficiency to withstand in extreme temperatures. Their experiments resulted in two chemical compounds which glow when combined together. They learned that peroxide and sodium could react to create chemical light. Using these substances they constructed a translucent tube which contains another tube containing the solution immersed in a chemical solution. When using it one has to bend the tube in order to make the tube inside to break and release the solution and that’s how the two solutions mix with each other.
These sticks were first used by navy for different activities like target marking, helicopter landing zone marking, as emergency lights, man over-board float lights, para drop operations and so on. Later the military and other departments started using them for multiple purposes.
There are several US patents for Glow sticks, and most of them are assigned to US navy. The first patent which include some inventors was filed in 1965. Later in 1973 and 1974, two other patents were filed with different inventors. In December, 1977 a patent was issued with Richard Taylor Van Zandt as the inventor. This design improved upon the previous designs by adding a steel ball inside the plastic tube that when shaken would break the glass ampoule.
However the invention is found useful and with the invent of latest Infrared glow sticks many rescue operations and military light operations are perfectly planned and well organized by the military people.
