tumbledry

Catalytic

Catalytic

Lens at 50mm, ISO 400, ƒ/1.8, 1/500s
Snapped Mar 16, 2008 at 7:40pm

3 comments left

Comments

Dan McKeown

Wait, where is this? What is it exactly? It intrigues me but my non-scientific mind is confused.

Alexander Micek

Dan, you are a fast commenter — I posted these pictures not more than 20 minutes ago! Woo!

Anyhow, that is a picture of contact lenses being disinfected by a dilute hydrogen (3%, I think) peroxide solution. The neutralization is catalyzed by that gray ridged (to increase surface area) disc at the bottom. I’ve always wondered what the disc is coated by, and Nate Brandt said it was platinum, which fits because apparently materials in periods 4, 5, and 6 work to catalyze the breakdown of hydrogen peroxide. Wouldn’t platinum be kind of expensive, though?

I decided to try to find out the answer.

And I’m back from research — judging by the color, I think that is manganese dioxide, which should be significantly cheaper than platinum. Hard to say.

Nils

I was going to ask the same question Dan did, but now I don’t need to. I’m glad that I now know that material make-up of this thing as well.