How to make Clear Care go faster

WARNING: I DO NOT AT ALL RECOMMEND ATTEMPTING TO DO SPEED UP CLEAR CARE'S REACTION RATE. THE FOLLOWING IS FOR SCIENTIFIC SPECULATION ONLY, AND FOLLOWING THROUGH WILL MOST LIKELY END IN HARM. THEREFORE, DO NOT DO THIS.

Let's say you're in the situation that you've popped in your lenses into the Clear Care lens case and used their hydrogen peroxide lens solution. Then you realize that you need to go out again in a couple of hours. Or, for whatever other reason, you need your lenses again in less than the six hours states in the directions.

Okay, first of all, my advice is to just wait the six hours. Open a new package of lenses if you need to and
store them in a normal lens case, if you really need the lenses right now. I myself rotate between two pairs of lenses; one I place in Clear Care, the other I put in normal lens solution (the enzymatic kind) so that they're always ready to go.

However, for scientific curiosity, I'll explain the factors in speeding up the reaction process. Again, please don't actually do this to skip the six hours - you will DEFINITELY burn your eyes.

First of all, hydrogen peroxide breaks down from sunlight. That's why hydrogen peroxide bottles are never clear, and usually in brown or silver bottles. If you place your lens case in natural sunlight, or even under a lightbulb, you'll speed up it's reaction drastically. How quickly I can't tell you, so once again, wait the six hours.

Second, if you can manage to get rid of the water molecules that float to the top, you can speed up the reaction as well. Le Chatelier's principle states that when you remove the product (in this case H2O), you'll speed up the reaction such that more reaction (in this case hydrogen peroxide) is formed. Presumably, because the water molecules float to the top and the hydrogen peroxide molecules float to the bottom (how else would they reach the metal catalyst at the bottom), if you keep remove the top layers of liquid you should theoretically speed up the reaction.

But the most important factor here is the metal catalyst. Remember, catalysts are there to speed up the reaction. But while it's true you can "add more catalyst" by dropping metals like silver or platinum or what have you in there, this is definitely not worth the hassle. Just open the next package of lenses.