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Asked by lippy1997 to Ailsa, Evan, James, Kath, Ryan on 20 Jun 2011.
Question: For my Birthday i was bought a crystal growing a set i grew a red one then my big sister said that if you hace hot water and salt it does the same thing is it true?
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Ailsa Powell answered on 17 Jun 2011:
Hi lippy1997, well part of my research is growing crystals from protein, so I think I can answer this one for you!
Your sister is correct, if you mix hot water and salt, let the salt dissolve and then let the solution dry out you will get crystals – they will be white though not red. Salt is in fact already made up of small crystals, by dissolving them you are trying to get bigger crystals. You can get blue crystals if you use copper sulphate – if that’s not in your crystal growing kit there may be some in your school.
Have fun growing crystals, I loved doing that with the crystal growing kit I had and I also love doing that for my job 🙂
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Ryan Ladd answered on 18 Jun 2011:
As Ailsa said, you can grow crystals from all kinds of common chemicals. I think you’ll find it hard to grow nice crystals from salt water but there are other house hold materials which can grow better crystals, if you’re patient!
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Evan Keane answered on 20 Jun 2011:
I have never grown crystals, or ever thought about it. Until now! I think I will give it a go now that I’ve read this. 😀
Comments
rwn1 commented on :
It could possibly work if you used food die(Red if thats the colour you want it to be).
Ailsa commented on :
Now that is an interesting idea that just sparked a bit of debate in my household! Kitchen salt is made up of sodium chloride and that forms a very stable lattice which is why if forms crystals because the sodium ions and chloride ions have opposite charges.
Now I think if a food colouring was to colour a sodium chloride crystal it would have to become part of the crystal lattice and I’m not sure if that would happen. So as I’m at home today, I’ve just set up the experiment in the kitchen. I will post the results when I get them – which will probably be tomorrow.
Ailsa commented on :
So I have finished the salt crystal growing experiment and have put the results on a website.
Hopefully this will work… (first time I’ve tried this)
https://weblearn.ox.ac.uk/access/content/user/37929/salt%20growing/crystal.html
Let me know what you think about the results.
rosieapple commented on :
that’s really interesting, i’ve made crysals with food clouring before and they came out well so it would be interesting to see what they looked like under the microscope!
Ailsa commented on :
Microscope pictures taken and I’ve updated the website to include them 🙂