Friday, April 19, 2013

Heterogeneous Catalysis with the AOSept System

I wanted a small demo of heterogeneous catalysis for class today, and found a package featuring the AOSept contact lens cleaning system in my demo area.   In this system,
the contact lenses are placed in a cleaning solution that contains hydrogen peroxide.  To help keep the peroxide from getting into person's eyes, the vial containing the peroxide solution and the contact lenses also contains a platinum-coated disk, which catalytically decomposes the hydrogen peroxide into oxygen gas and water.  After about 6 hours, the contacts are clean and the peroxide has decomposed.  The picture shows oxygen bubbles in the vial that I passed around my class.  It should be noted that there is a gas vent in the top of the vial and therefore the vial should be kept upright to prevent spills.

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