If you are fond of various experiments in the field of chemistry, then as a hobby, we suggest you try growing crystals at home. It is very interesting when different crystalline splendor grows out of nothing before your eyes, surprising with the perfection of forms and color scheme. You just need to know that growing crystals at home requires a lot of time, the process of crystal formation is not always fast. But the result is that slow speed means the formation of a large crystal, and vice versa: the faster the process, the smaller the size of the formed crystals.
There are various ways to grow a crystal at home. Among them: lowering the temperature of the substance, evaporation of excess liquid from the solution. In order not to be unfounded and give practical advice on how to grow a crystal at home, let's start with the simplest substance, with sodium chloride. So, we take a glass, pour water into it and put it in a pan with tap water heated to about 50-60 degrees. Pour salt into a glass and leave for 5 minutes to dissolve. Consider how you will maintain the temperature of the water in the pan, because you need to keep it warm at all times. You do this several times until the salt stops dissolving. Per 100 grams of water requires at least 35 grams of salt. As a result, you will get a saturated solution, which must be poured into another transparent dish, making sure that no excess settled and undissolved salt gets into it. Now find some more or less large crystalline salt, tie it to a thread and hang it like that. so that it does not touch the walls of the glass. And thatβs all, it remains to wait a few days. Until the crystal takes the size you expect. Repeating the procedure again, you can increase the size of the crystals to infinity.
Thus, you can grow crystals at home from any salt. From copper sulfate, you can get both blue and red crystals. In the same way as in the above process, you get a saturated solution of this salt. Only tap water will not work. You have to worry about taking distilled somewhere, because you cannot get a pure solution of copper sulfate otherwise.
And red crystals at home are obtained in the following way. You will need copper sulphate, table salt, blotting paper cut in the form of a section of the container and the usual buttons. Such growing crystals at home begins with a little copper sulfate being placed evenly on the bottom of the glass, salt is poured on top and this mixture is covered with a circle of blotters on which buttons or a steel plate are placed. After that, it is necessary to pour over the entire contents to the top of a saturated solution of sodium chloride prepared in advance by the above-described method. Put this dish where it can be left unattended for about one week. And then you will see how beautiful red acicular crystals grow.
Crystal growth at home is also possible in a multi-layer color form. For this, alum is needed, from which saturated solutions are prepared, in which various crystals are grown. And then they are alternately transferred from one solution to another. This is already a more complex process, for the implementation of which you need to have some knowledge in the field of chemical science. First, alum dissolves at a fairly high temperature. Secondly, when stored in air, they can evaporate. Therefore, the results of growing such crystals can be negative. So, you should start such experiments only if you are not afraid of disappointments.