Growing crystals at home quickly. Necessary materials and tools. How to grow a crystal

A wonderful and exciting activity - growing crystals at home - can distract your child from harmful gadgets for a long time. Real magic will happen before your eyes - to the surprise of both adults and children. And if you grow a crystal from sugar, the result will be not only beautiful, but also tasty.

The main thing is to be patient, crystals do not grow quickly, they need time. But you won’t have to wait a year either. One or two weeks is enough - and now the crystal is ready. Of course, it is not possible to grow ruby ​​or emerald druzy at home, but one way or another, the process will be very entertaining and interesting.

You should know that when artificial jewelry is grown in industrial conditions - diamond, ruby ​​and other crystals - the process is very slow, but it is possible to grow one large crystal. And if many small crystals are required, then the process must proceed quickly.

Methods

Cooling the solution

In this case, prepare a salt solution and then cool it. In this case, a chemical reaction occurs when dissolved substances in water precipitate due to a decrease in temperature and, accordingly, settle on the walls of the vessel or on a carefully placed stick or thread.

If the cooling is slow enough, you can grow several fairly large crystals of beautiful, geometrically correct shape. And if you cool it immediately and sharply, then many small crystals of salt are formed, and all of them are arbitrary, irregular shape. After all, with rapid and rapid growth, close proximity becomes crowded. But sometimes it can be fun to grow such crystals - a miracle happens literally before our eyes. Ruby crystals, of course, cannot be grown this way, but in any case, the result and process will be interesting.

Removing water

With this method, water is gradually evaporated from a solution of salt or sugar - naturally. It is important to evaporate the water as slowly as possible - the result will be more accurate. It is advisable to generally cover the container with the solution with paper. As a result, you will get large, beautiful crystals. In addition, this way dust will not get into the vessel and spoil all the beauty.

A thread or stick is usually placed in the vessel - crystals grow on these objects. If you don’t put anything in, crystals will begin to form at the bottom of the vessel - in this case, you will need to periodically turn the crystals over so that they grow evenly on all sides and have the correct edges.

The water will begin to evaporate over time and it will be necessary to add fresh nutrient concentrate.

It is interesting that even if the crystal was initially irregular, for example, grown in a cramped environment, then if it is separated and grown separately, over time it acquires a correct, beautiful shape, as if “recovering.”

What to use?

Let's consider what materials a crystal can be grown from:

1. Salt for cooking
2. Copper or iron sulfate
3. Alum
4. Sugar. The result will be beautiful and tasty. By the way, sometimes in stores and especially in tea boutiques, you can see sugar crystals on sticks that are sold. If you’ve seen it, you’ll agree that it’s very appetizing and looks gorgeous, but the price is disappointing. But you can grow sugar crystals yourself, delighting yourself and surprising your loved ones

Salt crystal

Table salt is found in every home, so this cheap, unpretentious material can be used for crystal experiments. In general, a crystal can be grown from any salt. But not everyone has access to chemical reagents and substances, so sodium chloride is the most accessible salt to us, in contrast to complex and expensive substances for growing ruby ​​or emerald.

• Pour water into a glass and place it in a container with water. Any water will do. If needed ideal conditions growing - use distilled. And if you are just conducting an amateur experiment, tap water will do.
• Salt should be poured into a glass and stirred. It will begin to dissolve. If the water in a large container begins to cool, constantly add warm water.
• Add salt and dissolve it, stirring and maintaining constantly high temperature water that surrounds the glass

• Add more salt until it stops dissolving. You will understand this when you see that the newly added salt simply begins to settle at the bottom. That's it, concentrated salt solution is obtained
• Now it should be poured into another container. In this case, the sediment that formed from the last addition of salt must be left in the old glass - for growing crystals it won't be useful
• Carefully sort through your salt and find a large enough crystal, then place it at the bottom of the glass with the solution. New crystals will form and grow around this “base”
• It will be more difficult to tie the crystal by a thread and hang it in a container with a solution - but at the end you will be able to get a thread hung with clusters
• After two days, you can already notice the growth that has begun. Moreover, with each subsequent day they will become larger and more beautiful. If you want you can add food coloring into the water - and you will have your own ruby ​​or chrysolite crystals

If you do the whole process again and use the crystal you grew as a “base”, it will increase even more. This can be continued practically ad infinitum. If you want, you can grow a salt crystal the size of your palm or smaller.

Keep in mind that a standard 200 gram glass can hold about 70 grams of salt - that's 3.5 tablespoons. This should be taken into account when preparing the solution. The proportion is calculated for a water temperature of 20 degrees. If you increase the temperature, more salt may fit into the glass. This refers to the amount that can dissolve in water without precipitation.

• It is not recommended to take growing “jewels” out of the nutrient solution into the air. This may slow down or stop their growth altogether.
• It is better to cover the container where the “pet” grows, since even the ingress of ordinary dust can be detrimental to the “growing organism”
• Be sure to monitor the solution, update it as necessary - and your “ruby” or “emerald” crystal will delight you with rapid, active growth

• It is not advisable to use dishes from which you someday plan to eat for your experiments.
• Do not use unknown reagents and chemicals. This could be dangerous
• If you conduct experiments from chemical substances, be sure to wear gloves and protective clothing

How to store

Suppose we have grown our jewel. Now you need to find out how to care for it and store it properly.

If you have grown a crystal from alum, it cannot be left in the open air, since under the influence of oxygen it will turn into a grayish powder. Therefore, it should only be stored in a jar with a closing lid. If you are going to keep it in the public domain and show it to friends, then it is better to cover the grown exhibit with a colorless varnish, thereby limiting the supply of oxygen. You can also cover it with color, stylizing it, for example, as the color of a ruby.

As for the “minerals” made from copper sulfate and salt, they are more stable. Therefore, for home growing, it is better to start with them. It is clear that it is undesirable to expose the salt crystal to water and keep it in a damp place.

In general, making your own crystals even from salt is quite exciting. By the way, theoretically, a crystal can be grown to any size if an appropriate vessel is found. But such dimensions, of course, are useless. And anyone can grow a neat and beautiful specimen at home. Some particularly enthusiastic chemists, and even amateurs, grew crystals at home of such a size that only a few people could lift the “colossus”.

According to their own physical properties and by chemical composition gems, obtained synthetically, practically do not differ from natural ones. Not all products sold in jewelry stores contain natural stones. And that's quite normal. Let's look at how to open your own business growing ruby ​​crystals at home.

The main problem is that most of natural stones does not have all the necessary characteristics to show off in jewelry. Stones obtained in factory or laboratory conditions have almost the same characteristics. In addition, synthetic production of jewelry is cheaper than mining natural jewelry in deep and life-threatening mines.

Growing with limited salts

For this method potassium alum is suitable. It is best to grow crystals from copper sulfate at home. They don't grow well from regular salt. But copper sulfate is easy to buy, and very beautiful blue artificial gemstones grow from it.

1. Prepare the container. We will make a saturated salt solution in it. Pour a few tablespoons of salt, fill it with water and stir. Add salt until it stops dissolving. Use hot water to avoid mistakes with the proportions. There are solubility curves for different salts. They show how many grams can be dissolved in 100 ml of water at a certain temperature.

Solubility curves

2. Filter the solution. This step is very important, especially if you buy copper sulfate at a garden center. If the solution is dirty, the crystal will grow with defects. Leave the solution for a day so that excess crystals fall out of it. They settle at the bottom of the glass and serve as a seed for us (the main elements on which new ones will grow).

3. Tie the crystal to the fishing line. We wrap the fishing line around a pencil and hang this device on a glass with a saturated solution. Over time, the water evaporates, the saturation of the solution increases. Excess substance that cannot dissolve settles on our product.

4. Once every two weeks, add a saturated solution to the glass. Why do this? Over time, the water evaporates and at some point during growth there will not be enough water and growth will stop.

Important! The added solution must be the same temperature as the solution where the crystal is growing. If it is the highest, we can ruin everything.

5. After three months, remove the crystal and dry it with a napkin.

6. Cover the product with 1-2 layers of colorless nail polish. This is necessary so that it does not dry out and lose its shine. After drying, the product can be handled by hand.

These are some wonderful rubies you can grow at home!

In winter, we often admired trees covered with frost and carefully examined snowflakes during snowfalls. And in one of the lessons about the surrounding world, I learned that both frost and snowflakes are crystals that are formed from water vapor. I wondered, what else could such beautiful crystals be formed from?

Growing crystals is a very interesting process, but it can be quite lengthy. It is useful to know what processes control its growth; why do different substances form crystals? various shapes, and some do not form them at all; what needs to be done to make them big and beautiful.

If crystallization proceeds very slowly, you get one large crystal (or a single crystal, for example, when growing artificial stones), if quickly, you get many small ones (or a polycrystal, for example, metals).

Crystals(from the Greek κρύσταλλος, originally - ice, later - rock crystal, crystal) - solids in which atoms are arranged regularly, forming a three-dimensional periodic spatial arrangement - a crystal lattice.

There are ideal and real crystals. An ideal crystal is, in fact, a mathematical object that has complete, inherent symmetry, idealized smooth smooth edges. The largest crystals were discovered in the Cave of Crystals in the Nike mine complex, in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Some of the gypsum crystals found there reach 15 meters in length and 1 meter in width.

Crystals can also be grown at home from salt, sugar, soda ash, copper sulfate. It must be remembered that these are chemical reagents, so children can only work with them under adult supervision! Growing crystals is an entertaining process, but it requires a careful and careful approach to your work. Theoretically, the size of the crystal that can be grown at home in this way is unlimited. There are cases when enthusiasts received crystals of such size that they could only be lifted with the help of their comrades.

Purpose of work: learn to grow crystals of table salt and other substances at home.

Job objectives:

Collect information about crystals in the literature,

Select available equipment and raw materials for growing crystals at home,

Get acquainted with safety measures when conducting experiments,

Grow crystals of table salt, copper sulfate, potassium dichromate, cobalt sulfate, chromium (III) sulfate.

The process of growing table salt crystals does not require any special chemicals. Crystals of other salts are grown in a similar way.

1. Olgin O., “Experiments without explosions”, M.; "Chemistry", 1995, 192 p.

2. Zdorik T. B., “The stone that gives birth to metal”, M.; "Enlightenment", 1984, 184 p.

3. Shaskolskaya M. P.; “Crystals”, M.: Nauka, 1985, 208 p.

4. Kantor B.Z.; “The mineral talks about itself,” M.: Nedra, 1985, 138 p.

5. Stepin B. D., Alikberova L. Yu., “Book on chemistry for home reading”, M.: Khimiya, 1994, 400 p.

Almost everyone can do it. The main thing is to have the necessary knowledge to conduct the experiment correctly. A similar practice is carried out in some schools during chemistry lessons. Of course there are certain rules that should not be neglected:

1. Dishes used for growing cannot be used for eating.


2. You need to use only those reagents that you know.


3. You cannot eat or drink while growing.


4. Materials and resources for the experiment must be stored in a sealed, dry place. Giving them to children or animals is strictly prohibited.


5. The experiment is carried out in a separate, closed room wearing gloves and protective clothing.


6. If the solution gets on the skin, the area should be washed with water. In case of contact with the eye, consult a doctor immediately.


7. Keep your work area tidy.

As you understand, all these rules are necessary for growing a crystal at home to be successful, without undesirable consequences.

How to grow a crystal at home

To prepare, you will need a glass container and a substance from which the crystal will grow. For those who are conducting such experiments for the first time, it is recommended to use salt or copper sulfate. The first one can be purchased at any grocery store, and the last one is where fertilizers for the garden and garden are sold. Also, both can be purchased at chemical stores.

The experiment itself is carried out as follows:

1. The substance is placed in small portions into hot water. The reagent is stirred until a concentrated solution is obtained. Its main symptom is that the substance will stop dissolving.


2. The resulting solution is cooled and after half an hour is filtered using a funnel and a piece of cotton wool. The procedure is repeated a day later.


3. A seed (small crystal) is placed in the solution. 3 days after this, small crystals form in the container, which will interfere with the growth of the main one. To get rid of them, the liquid is filtered and poured into another container. The main crystal is also placed there.


4. Gradually, the liquid in the container evaporates, and the seed begins to grow. If it was just lying on the bottom, the direction of growth would be limited from below. If the crystal is brought to the very beginning copper wire, the only limitation will be the walls of the vessel. When all the liquid has evaporated, what remains in the container is

Our little new friend Genie promised to show and teach how to grow crystals at home. Young archaeologists share with us their impressions and acquired experience.

What are crystals?

Crystals are solids that have a natural external shape of regular symmetrical polyhedra based on their internal structure. The first studies of crystals date back to the beginning of the 17th century.

They grow and “reproduce” on their own, which is why they can rightfully be called “alive”. To “feed” most crystals, water is required as their main ingredient.

How to grow a fluffy crystal

Fluffy crystal - amazing and very fragile. Modern “chemically grown trees” are based on it. We ! And today we have grown such a tree entirely ourselves.

To grow a fluffy crystal we needed:

• Polyvinyl alcohol
• Hot water
• Urea
• Dye
• Liquid soap
• Filter paper
• Petri dish or saucer
• Measuring spoon
• Glass vessel
• Beaker

Just like when creating something exciting, you first need to glass jar dissolve 5 g of polyvinyl alcohol in 100 ml in a water bath hot water.

And now the creative process: we create a “tree” from filter paper. To do this, cut out a rectangle from a circle and make a cylinder out of it, fastening it with a stapler. After this, we cut one edge into “petals” and bend them slightly to the side.

The progress of the experiment on growing a fluffy crystal

Let's prepare a saturated solution of urea. To do this, pour 15g of urea and a few grains of dye into a glass.

After stirring, add 15 ml of hot water.

After thoroughly mixing the solution again, add 2 ml of the prepared polyvinyl alcohol solution to the glass. For more intensive crystal growth, it is recommended to add a couple of drops of liquid soap.

Now we pour the solution into a Petri dish, in the center of which we place the prepared base for the crystals - the “tree”. And... we watch and are surprised!

We got our first crystals within 20 minutes:

This is what they looked like an hour later:

In a day:

The crystals grow intensively and quickly, but at the same time they are very fragile. But to be honest, this property is very captivating for children. Because when I allowed them to do whatever they wanted with the trees at the end of the experiment, they “broke” the fluffy crystals with great pleasure and for quite a long time, looked at them, carefully studied them, touched them...

How to grow polycrystal

Polycrystal is a crystal consisting of many differently oriented small single crystals. Because of their irregular shape, they are often called crystallites.

To grow a polycrystal at home you need to acquire the following:

• Dye
• Ammonium monophosphate
• Hot water
• Wand
• Thread
• measuring spoon
• Beaker

Conducting an experiment on growing polycrystals at home

Prepare a saturated solution of ammonium monophosphate. To do this, pour the substance into a measuring glass to the 100 ml mark, add dye and pour 150 ml of hot water. Stir the solution thoroughly for a couple of minutes.

Now we tie a thread to the stick and for 2-3 minutes we lower its end into the resulting solution to a depth of about 5 cm. After this, we take out the thread and leave it to dry for 10-15 minutes. This starts the mechanism for the formation of crystal growth centers on the thread.

We lower the thread into the solution again and observe. Intensive crystal growth begins within an hour:

The longer the crystal remains in solution, the larger it becomes.

We observed an interesting picture. In addition to the thread, we left a stirring stick in the glass with the solution, and no less beautiful polycrystals grew on it, which very quickly turned into “ice cream on a stick” and captivated my son for a long time.

Polycrystals grow very beautiful. They are interesting to look at in the light. The light refracts from the edges and produces a small rainbow...

How to grow a single crystal

Monocrystal- a separate homogeneous crystal having a continuous crystal lattice. Growing a single crystal at home requires much more time and these are the ingredients and materials:

• Potassium alum
• Hot water
• Dye if desired
• measuring spoon
• Filter paper
• Beaker
• Stirring stick

First you need to prepare the “seed”. For it we prepare a solution of 3 spoons of potassium alum and 50 ml of hot water.

Now we pass the solution through the filter, folding it into a funnel. Filtration takes a long time. When my son wanted to speed it up by stirring with a stick, the paper tore and had to be done all over again. So, it's better not to rush.

The strained solution, covered with paper, should be left for 10-15 hours. During this time, potassium alum crystals form at the bottom of the glass, which will serve as a “seed”.

After pouring the saturated solution into an empty glass, select the largest crystal and tie it to the tip of a thread. We tie the second end of the thread to a stick.

We again prepare a solution of potassium alum and hot water, this time using the ratio: 9 spoons of the substance and 150 ml of water. If desired, you can add dye to the still dry substance.

When the solution has cooled, filter it and lower the thread with the “seed”. Cover the glass with paper and be patient: the crystal takes a long time to grow - 3-4 weeks.

Unfortunately, we were unable to grow a single crystal. Apparently we were in too much of a hurry and ended up with several pockets of growth. Thus, we have grown another polycrystal...

To carry out all these exciting crystal growing experiments at home, we used just one kit with chemical experiments for children from "" - Secrets of crystals .

Several days of experiments passed quickly and excitingly. Every morning my son hurried to see how much his crystals had grown.

We also had experience growing crystals from salt. The result was a beautiful polycrystal white...Have you grown crystals at home? Share your experience and impressions!

PS: You can purchase these and other sets from the “SuperProfessor” series here.

I wish you an exciting summer!

With warmth,

Alexey, Arseny and Lyudmila Potsepun.