Place your jar in a warm, dry place so that the water evaporates faster. Boiling the water and placing the jar or glass in a warm place will speed up the formation of crystals.

When magma cools, crystals form because the solution is super-saturated with respect to some minerals. If the magma cools quickly, the crystals do not have much time to form, so they are very small. If the magma cools slowly, then the crystals have enough time to grow and become large.

Why does the crystal stop growing? A crystal will only grow when the surrounding solution is supersaturated with solute. When the solution is exactly saturated, no more material will be deposited on the crystal. Some may be deposited, however an equal amount will leave the crystal surface to go back into solution.

Because warmth is key to forming crystals, the jar’s surroundings should be warm also for optimum crystal growth. Warm air temperature aids water evaporation, causing the crystals to grow more quickly. Crystals will still grow in cooler temperatures, but it will take much longer for the water to evaporate.

When you add Epsom salt to water, the salt dissolves. When you leave the pan in the sun, the water evaporates and the salt forms crystals shaped like long needles. As the water evaporated, the salts crystallized, making beautiful shapes that kept growing and changing.

Epsom salt is another name for the chemical magnesium sulfate. As the solution cools, the magnesium sulfate atoms run into each other and join together in a crystal structure. Crystals grown this way will be small, thin, and numerous. Left undisturbed, the crystals should last months or more!

My data showed that salt made more crystals compared to sugar. The average area for salt crystals in 101.75 mm and sugar was only 30.5 mm, a 71.25 mm difference. Out of the two types of salts, Epsom Salt and Iodized Table Salt, Iodized Salt did better with an average of 95 mm.

Crystal Growing Problem #1: No Crystal Growth. This is usually caused by using a solution that isn’t saturated. You can stir the solution and apply heat to help to get solute into solution. You want to keep adding solute until you start to see some accumulate at the bottom of your container.

For the crystals to grow, it’s really important that the solution is saturated when the water is hot. Otherwise, the solution will not be supersaturated when it cools, and crystals won’t form (the background information to the project idea discusses this, if you want some more details).

Chilling the liquid produces smaller, delicate-looking crystals. Refrigerating the liquid usually produces crystals within 30 minutes to a couple of hours.

The solubility of most solids increases with temperature. In other words, more Borax may be dissolved in hot water than cold water. So if a hot, saturated mixture is cooled, there’s more Borax than can be contained by the colder water, and so Borax may fall out of the mixture, forming crystals.

While there’s no definitive answer, several experts have weighed in to say the small amount of borax used for making slime or other science projects isn’t really enough to be absorbed through the skin and cause harm. As long as your children don’t ingest borax – especially in large quantities – they should be fine.

Hot water can hold more borax crystals than cold water because, when water is heated, its molecules move farther apart, making room for more of the borax crystals to dissolve. As the solution cooled, the water molecules moved closer together again and the borax was pushed back out of the solution.

Hot water holds more borax crystals than cold water. That’s because heated water molecules move farther apart, making room for more of the borax crystals to dissolve. When no more of the solution can be dissolved, you have reached saturation. As this solution cools, the water molecules move closer together again.

Uses for Borax

• Used as an aid to your carpet cleaning machine.
• Pour one box of sodium borate powder into the toilet bowl and leave overnight.
• Clean mold and mildew.
• Clean the floor.
• Used as an all-purpose cleaner.
• Borax cleans violin strings!
• Borax removes rust.
• Used in cleaning outdoor furniture.

Borax (Sodium tetraborate) is used as a cleaner in many parts of the world and may be purchasable in supermarkets or home handyman stores. Boric acid on the other hand is used as a toxic pesticide. (Sodium tetraborate is a salt of Boric acid). Alum is Aluminium Sulfate.

Borax crystals are pretty hearty. To remove any crystals that may have grown on the sides of your jar simply fill the jar with hot water and let the Borax dissolve.

Homemade crystals are softer and more fragile than most gemstones. You can use them in jewelry, but need to take three factors into account: Hardness: Covalent crystals (e.g., sugar crystals) are inherently soft. Ionic crystals (e.g., borax, copper sulfate, salt) are harder, but can fracture or shatter if struck.

For cleaning purposes, hot tap water will suffice. But for a pure borax solution, use hot distilled water. Borax, or sodium metaborate, mixed with water creates a stable solution with a variety of uses. Dissolving borax in water takes some patience, as it does not readily mix with water at cool temperatures.

The submerged pipe cleaners should form crystals over the next 12-24 hours. The longer that you leave them then the bigger they will grow.