Question: how do you make crystals?? I love crystals!!!!!!

Connor Prior answered on 12 Mar 2020:

It depends! Each compound is slightly different.

Generally inorganic compounds (like salts and metals based compounds) form crystals very easily! A good way to do this in your home is to take a gram of table salt and add the MINIMUM about of water until all the salt has dissolved (alternatively make a brine solution and decant the solids off) and allow it to stand on the window sill for several days. The salt will crystallise back out of solution!

I make crystals with organic (carbon based) small molecules! I often have to grow them because we have a machine which then tells you what the compound is by firing X-rays (like you get at the doctors) at the crystal. If you go to my profile there’s a really good photograph on my page of a bright yellow crystal I grew. It was the first one I ever did!