Sacred heart central school (senior secondary)

#48 , east pondy road, villupuram – 05 02.

A project on
GROWING CRYSTALS

FOR
AISSCE 2022 EXAMINATION
(AS A PART OF THE CHEMISTRY (043))

SUBMITTED BY MITHILESH PRABHU

REGISTER NUMBER: 20678207

UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF

Dr.S.MUTHUKUMAR
M.Sc.,M.Phil.,B.Ed.,B.L.I.Sc.,P.G.D.C.A.,B.A.(Hindi).,D.T.Sc.,Ph.D.
 ACADEMIC YEAR

2021 – 2022

TITLE : GROWING CRYSTALS

NAME : MITHILESH PRABHU

CLASS : XII-A1

REGISTER NO : 20678207

March’ 2022
 Dr.S.Muthukumar, M.Sc. M.Phil. B.Ed. B.L.I.Sc. PGDCA. MISTE.B.A.(Hindi) Ph.D .D.T.Sc.,
PGT in Chemistry, Department of Chemistry,
Sacred Heart Central School,
#486, East Pondy Road, Villupuram – 605602,
Tamil Nadu, India

BONAFIDE CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the Chemistry Investigatory Project entitled “Growing Crystals” has

been successfully completed by MITHILESH PRABHU of Class XII under the guidance of

DR.S.MUTHUKUMAR in particular fulfillment of the curriculum of Central board of

Secondary Education (CBSE) leading to award of annual examination of the year 2021 – 22.

Teacher – in – charge External Examiner

Principal
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This investigatory project is the end of my journey in completing my XII standard. I have not

travelled in a vacuum in this journey. This investigatory project has been kept on track and been seen

through to completion with the support and encouragement of numerous people including my well-wishers,

my friends and classmates.

To commence with, I pay my obeisance to GOD, the almighty to have bestowed upon me good

health, courage, inspiration, zeal and the light. After GOD, I express my sincere and deepest gratitude to

our school Principal, Sr. S.SUSEELA, Sacred Heart Central School, Villupuram 605602 since no research

is possible without infrastructure and requisite materials and resource and for providing me with the

requisite institutional facilities throughout my research tenure. Next I would like to thank my research

supervisor Dr.S.Muthukumar who ploughed through several preliminary versions of my text, making

critical suggestions and posing challenging questions. His expertise, invaluable guidance, constant

encouragement, affectionate attitude, understanding, patience and healthy criticism added considerably to

my experience. Without his continual inspiration, it would have not been possible to complete this study.

I am indebted to my classmates for providing a stimulating and fun filled environment. They are

always beside me during the happy and hard moments to push me and motivate me. I can see the good shape

of my investigatory project because of their help and suggestions in formatting the entire project. I

acknowledge the people who mean a lot to me, my parents for showing faith in me and giving me liberty

tochoose what I desired. I salute you all for the selfless love, care, pain and sacrifice you did to shape my life.

Although you hardly understood what I researched on, you were willing to support any decision I made. I

would never be able to pay back the love and affection showered upon by my parents.

Mithilesh Prabhu.
 INDEX

1. BONAFIDE CERTIFICATE

2. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

3. AIM OF THE PROJECT

4. APPARATUS AND MATERIALS USED

5. PROCEDURE FOLLOWED

6. OBSERVATIONS

7. ANALYSIS OF DATA AND DISCUSSION OF RESULT

8. CONCLUSION

9. LIMITATION

10. BIBLIOGRAPHY
3. AIM OF THE PROJECT

To study the growth

of the Crystals.
4. A.APPARATUS USED
 Distilled Water

 Bowl for boiling water

 Stirring spoon

 2 clear drinking glasses

4. B. MATERIALS USED
 Food Colouring

 Epsom Salt

 Table Salt (Not Ionized)

 Alum

 Washing Soda

 Borax
5. PROCEDURE FOLLOWED

First, we need to know a little bit about

the conditions for growing crystals and
why they grow. This will allow us to
make our own modifications to the
process to get the best crystals. All crystal
making begins with a saturated solution.
This is simply a solution that cannot
hold any more of the material. For
example, if we are making a saturated
solution of salt water, we would add salt
to the water until no more could be
dissolved. Eventually the salt will start
collecting at the bottom of the container
because the water cannot hold any more
salt. Crystals grow when the solution
becomes supersaturated, meaning that
there is too much salt dissolved in the
water. The extra salt (or other material)
takes the form of crystals.
To get a supersaturated solution we can
either cool down the solution or let
some of the water evaporate. To begin,
made some Epsom salt crystals. These
are easy to grow and we will begin to see
crystals in a couple of hours. Started with
one cup of warm distilled water (not
boiling).Started adding Epsom salts by
the spoonful and stirring until they
dissolve. Continued this until not more
Epsom salts can be dissolved (this will
probably be about one cup). Allowed the
mixture set for a couple of minutes until
all of the undissolved salt is on the
bottom of the container.
Slowly poured off the solution into a
shallow bowl, and stopped pouring
before we get to the dissolved salt. Kept
the bowl in the refrigerator for 3 hours.
We should see some crystals beginning
to grow. We have to observe, what do
they look like? What shape and color
are they? We have just made crystals
using the cooling method. Next, to make
some alum crystals using the evaporation
method.Again, being with some hot
distilled water. Started with a small
amount, ¼ to ½ a cup will be fine.
Started to add the alum by the spoonful
and stirring until it dissolves. Followed
the same method as above to make the
supersaturated solution and pour off the
solution, leaving the undissolved crystals
behind. Used a small saucer or plate to
grow the crystals.
This will allow for maximum surface
area for the volume of solution we have,
increasing the evaporation rate. Let it set
(not in the refrigerator) for a couple of
days. We may begin to see small crystals
form after an hour or so from the
cooling of the solution, if not, we will see
a crystal garden begin to grow within a
day. Examined our crystals for the
aspects like, What shape are they? How
big is our biggest one? Smallest? How
long did it take for the first crystals to
form? Evaporation method used to
make alum crystals with table salt, sugar,
and borax. The crystals pictured on the
right are table salt crystals. We have
added food coloring to the solution since
we want colorful crystals. Used the below
table to record our observations.
 6. OBSERVATIONS

Time to Size of
Material Shape Observations
1 Crystal
st
Largest

Epsom Salt

Alum

Common salt

Sugar

Borax
7. ANALYSIS OF DATA
DISCUSSION OF RESULT
The result of the experiment showing the
effects of temperature on alum crystal edge
length are displayed in Graph 1 and Table
1. The data on Graph 1 were the means of
the 48 lengths measured in the experiment.
As the temperature of the solutions of the
the crystals rose, the lengths of the crystal
edges increased. The mean length of the
two coldest temperatures of the solution
were roughly 2 mm less than the mean for
the two highest temperatures of the
solution. The median and mode of the trials
both increased along with the temperature.
There was greater variation for the range in
the warmer temperatures. The standard
deviation increased slightly as the
temperature increased.
The effects of temperature on alum crystal
weight are displayed in Graph 2 and Table
2.
The mass of crystals varied by the
temperature of the solution, with the colder
solutions having greater masses of crystals.
The mean weights of crystals formed at
lower temperatures were greater than the
crystals formed at high temperatures. The
median and the mode of the coldest solution
is double that of the warmest solution. The
range of the weight of the crystal grown in
the two warmer solutions were 0, showing
that the growth of crystals were more
uniform, weight wise, though the colder
solutions were not as uniform, their ranges
being 3 for ice bath and 4 for room
temperature. The standard deviation showed
the same trend, the standard deviation being
the same for the two higher temps and
different between the two lower temps.
The type of data for both measurements that
were collected was categorical.This data is
categorical because the experiment was
designed to be based on categories of
temperature. The type of graph selected was
a bar graph. The bar graph was chosen
because it is the kind best used for
categorical data.
8. CONCLUSION
To grow crystals we must start with a
saturated solution. As the solution cools
or evaporates it will become
supersaturated, causing crystals to form.
As the crystals form the atoms have a
certain arrangement that they will settle
into. By looking at the larger crystal we
can get an idea of how the atoms are
arranged on the atomic scale. By using a
seed crystal we can grow quite large
crystals as the solution becomes
supersaturated.
9. LIMITATION:
We present results concerning the
limitation of maximum crystal size by
pre-foaming an aqueous supersaturated
solution, followed by its crystallization.
Foams are generated by adding specific
surface active agents to the solution and
by air injection under continuous high
shear agitation, leading to a gas-liquid
stable dispersion having polyhedral
internal structures with thin separating
liquid films. This spatial dispersion
structuration, by locally reducing the
amount of solute available for each
crystal growth, permits the limitation of
the resulting crystal sizes. It is shown
that, under these conditions, the initial
film thickness and mean bubble radius,
obtained for a given volume fraction of
gas in the foam, can control the final
crystal size distribution. The foam
expansion ratio thus appears to be a new
operating parameter for crystal growth
limitation when using a foam
crystallization technique.
10. BIBLIOGRAPHY:

1.https://www.mrsec.psu.edu/content
/growing-crystals
2.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v
=9Ugg6vK4WGE
3.https://sciencenotes.org/how-to-gr ow-
crystals/
4.https://sciencenotes.org/how-to-gr ow-
crystals/