Growing Crystals
Most recent answer: 10/22/2007
Q:
What are the growing conditions and location for any other kind of crystals other than sugar crystals?
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
A:
Growing crystals can be difficult or easy, depending on what material
it is you are trying to grow a crystal out of. Most pure substances
will make crystals when frozen slowly enough, and many of these can be
made to form crystals if they come out of solution, as in the sugar
example you give.
In fact, it is nearly impossible to prevent crystal formation in substances which naturally form them. One way to prevent crystal formation is to freeze the substance very rapidly. How rapidly that is depends a lot on the type of material. Glass isn’t crystalline because it is cooled off faster than it takes to form regular patterns for the silicon dioxide molecules. Cool silicon dioxide very much more slowly, and you might get nice quartz crystals. Pressure may play a role in forming rock crystals as well, but the usual ingredient is time and patience, and a pure sample of the material.
Many materials we don’t think of as crystalline show their crystalline structure if you look at them under a microscope. Metals, sugar, sand, and salt, all have tiny little crystals in them. The big art form in growing crystals is growing big, perfect ones.
It helps to get the crystallization process off to a good start with a "seed" crystal around which the crystal will grow. Otherwise, once the freezing point is reached, many tiny little crystals will start forming in different places in your material, and they will grow and collide with each other. If you can start the crystallization in just one place first, you have a better chance at growing just one big crystal.
I’d imagine you can grow salt crystals in the same way you grow sugar crystals. Before trying to grow crystals of other substances, please check to see if they are poisonous or flammable, and make sure that they are solids at room temperature (don’t try to crystallize gasoline, for example -- it’s a complicated mixture, it’s a liquid at room temperature, it’s poisonous, and it’s flammable!).
Tom
In fact, it is nearly impossible to prevent crystal formation in substances which naturally form them. One way to prevent crystal formation is to freeze the substance very rapidly. How rapidly that is depends a lot on the type of material. Glass isn’t crystalline because it is cooled off faster than it takes to form regular patterns for the silicon dioxide molecules. Cool silicon dioxide very much more slowly, and you might get nice quartz crystals. Pressure may play a role in forming rock crystals as well, but the usual ingredient is time and patience, and a pure sample of the material.
Many materials we don’t think of as crystalline show their crystalline structure if you look at them under a microscope. Metals, sugar, sand, and salt, all have tiny little crystals in them. The big art form in growing crystals is growing big, perfect ones.
It helps to get the crystallization process off to a good start with a "seed" crystal around which the crystal will grow. Otherwise, once the freezing point is reached, many tiny little crystals will start forming in different places in your material, and they will grow and collide with each other. If you can start the crystallization in just one place first, you have a better chance at growing just one big crystal.
I’d imagine you can grow salt crystals in the same way you grow sugar crystals. Before trying to grow crystals of other substances, please check to see if they are poisonous or flammable, and make sure that they are solids at room temperature (don’t try to crystallize gasoline, for example -- it’s a complicated mixture, it’s a liquid at room temperature, it’s poisonous, and it’s flammable!).
Tom
(published on 10/22/2007)