Crystal Making

Lab Project

By: Olivia Dellemonache,

Camryn Heitzenrater, and
Olivia Kaminski
Reactions Happening Everywhere
 One topic that I find very interesting and very cool is crystal making. For this lab

research project we picked to make crystals. A crystal is made of molecules of a product that

have come together in a specific repeated pattern. From doing research and hearing different

things crystal making has many types of reactions and things that occur. Throughout these

paragraph it will describe the process in making crystals and the exact steps and science behind

it.

Each day there are tons of chemical reactions that happen around you and even inside

your body. Chemical reactions change from one chemical compound into another one. When

more than one product is formed the chemist may want to separate one compound from the

others. One way this is done is by recrystallization. This process is where a solution of

compounds can be dissolved in hot water and then cooled. Whenever it is cooling one substance

becomes crystals, and can be removed from the rest of the liquid. When this happens it will then

hold the other compounds present.

Many ask the question of how crystals appear as the mixture is cooling. The answer to

this is solubility, this is when a large amount of something gets dissolved in something different.

Some examples would be the powdered cleaning product, Borax, in water. The solubility of most

solids increases with temperature. Borax can be dissolved in hot water rather than cold water.

When a hot saturated mixture is cooled, there's more Borax than can be contained by the colder

water. When this happens the Borax may fall out of the mixture which creates crystals. As the

hot is in the saturated mixture of Borax and the cooled water, there will be more borax than

could be contained by the colder water, and so this borax fell out of the mixture and formed

crystals. A crystal is made of molecules of a product that have come together in a specific

repeated pattern. When the molecules come together, the other products that are often considered
impurities don’t fit well into the structure. If these crystals form slowly, the impurities will be

rejected. This is because they don’t fit properly and when this happens they will remain in the

water. This is why the crystals in the room-temperature beaker should be bigger. Sometimes

when a solution is cooled too quickly, there isn't time to expel the impurities. Then what happens

is they become trapped within the crystal structure and the pattern is destroyed. The crystals in

the beaker of the ice water should have formed more quickly and in higher numbers. But when

smaller and less cube like in shape they had more impurities. Throughout this research we have

learned so much from the reactions and what occurs to make a crystal. We have most definitely

learned from this lab and especially the research done.

Works Cited:

Rubin, Julian. “Crystal Growing.” Julian’s Science Experiments. Julian Rubin, 12 June

2013.

Unknown. “Crystal Growing Experiment.” Science Company. Science Company, 15

January 2018.

Smith, Mike. “Grow a Crystal.” Smith’s Science Things. Mike Smith, 22 August 2017.

Questions:

1. Will the Borax or the salt help the crystals grow faster? Why?
 2. If more salt was added to the water, would the results be better and would the crystals

have grown faster?

Hypothesis:

Do you think that the borax mixture or the salt mixture will have a better result? I think

that the borax mixture will have a better result because borax dissolves better in hot water. Salt

does not dissolve as well in hot water.

Material List:

-Beaker (2)

-Yarn (long piece)

-Pencil (2)

-Scissors (1)

-Hot plate (2)

-Water (1 cup)

-Borax (3 tablespoon)

-Pipe cleaners (2)

-Food Coloring (Few drops)

-Salt (3 tablespoon)

-Glass String Rod (1)

-Pipet (1)

Procedure:
Borax Snowflake
 1. Cut a white pipe cleaner into three equal sections.

2. Twist the sections together to form a six-sided snowflake shape.

3. Tie the string to the end of one of the snowflake legs and tie the other end to the pencil.

4. Boil one cup of water to fill the beaker.

5. Add one tablespoon of Borax at a time into the boiling water, three in total.

6. Stir each tablespoon in the water thoroughly until dissolved.

7. Put the snowflake into the boiling water.

8. Add food coloring to the mixture to color your snowflake.

9. Let the beaker sit overnight.

10. Enjoy!

Salt Snowflake

1. Cut a white pipe cleaner into three equal sections.

2. Twist the sections together to form a six-sided snowflake shape.

3. Tie the string to the end of one of the snowflake legs and tie the other end to the pencil.

4. Boil one cup of water to fill the beaker.

5. Add one tablespoon of salt at a time into the boiling water, three in total.

6. Stir each tablespoon in the water thoroughly until dissolved.

7. Put the snowflake in the boiling water.

8. Add food coloring to the mixture to color your snowflake.

9. Let the beaker sit overnight.

10. Enjoy!

Analysis and Conclusion:

 During our experiment, we saw that our hypothesis was correct. While mixing the salt in

the hot water, it took a while to get it to dissolve. Some of the salt did not fully dissolve. When

we mixed the borax into the second beaker of hot water, it dissolved almost instantly. We

followed our procedure and let the mixtures sit overnight. When we came in the next day, we

examined the two beakers. We saw that the borax crystal grew a lot more than the salt crystal

did. One error that we had in this experiment was that we didn’t wait enough time for the salt to

dissolve. This could have effected how our crystal formed in the salt mixture. If we let it dissolve

completely, the crystal might have grown more. We can correct this error in the future by taking

out time and stir the mixture until it is fully dissolved.