Ive seen so-called UV energy beads change from white to various colors when exposed to UV light. What type of chemicals are embedded in those plastic beads, and are they toxic?
The colorants imbedded in the beads are known as “photochromic colorants”. A web search on that term will turn up lots of information on them. I couldn’t find details on toxicity, but the colorants themselves are embedded in plastic prior to use, so they are probably not readily accessible. However, I would encourage you to be careful with these as you would with any man-made chemical. In other words, I wouldn’t eat them! This web page gives a good overview of how photochromic colorants work (scroll down to the section on photochromic colorants near the bottom) and lists what some of the specific chemicals are. You could do some toxicity searches on those chemicals. Another page, gives some more specifics and explains how different colors are made.
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