Some bottles of H2O2 are light transmitting but some of them are amber glass. In this case; is H2O2 light sensitive, or not?
it is UV sensitive, yes. but it would require a lot of illumination, I suspect.
You can make a diluted solution and measure concentration at 240 nm, e = 46.3 for 1M solution. Place one portion in the clear bottle and anotehr into brown glass bottle. measure concentration everyday and you will get your answer!
As Alexander has indicated, H2O2 is light sensitive. I would recommend you to prepare fresh solutions of hydrogen peroxide every day before the assays, and keep the solution on ice and protected from light (aluminium foil or amber bottle). This is very important particularly when you want to be sure of having a determined H2O2 concentration. Hydrogen peroxide also decomposes in the presence of trace metals. Actually, H2O2 is not a very stable compound.
Dear Alexander Galkin and Dear L.A del Rio;
Thank you so much for your informative answers. i will completely do what you say.
To add to L.A.'s comment, metal oxidation by H2O2 occurs by way of "The Fenton reaction". Very interesting reaction in which free radicals are created by just a touch of contaminating or added metal (iron seems to be the most effective), hugely increasing oxidation via H2O2, then the free radicals that are created act as the catalyst, such that the contaminating metal can be removed and the catalyzed oxidation reaction continues unchanged. I.E. the contaminating metal acts as an ignition switch for an engine as opposed to a true catalyst required for each subsequent chemical reaction.
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