This is one of the quickest and easiest crystal growing projects there is! All you need is a bit of salt, water, a steel pan, and a stove to produce salt crystal rings, ferns, and other shapes.
Salt Crystal Rings & Fern Materials
- steel or iron pot - don't use a non-stick pan since the non-stick coating could overheat and release fumes
- salt (sodium chloride)
- water
- food coloring (optional)
How to Grow the Crystals
It's really easy! Just sprinkle a little salt in the pot and a few drops of water. You can add a drop of food coloring if you want colored crystals. Heat the water until you see the liquid starting to evaporate off the pan. Turn off the heat. Watch the crystals form.
Clean-Up
You can add more water and repeat the project over and over. All you do for clean-up is rinse out the pan.
Design Experiments
You have a lot of variables that you can examine.
- type of salt - iodized, uniodized, sea salt, etc.
- concentration of salt - results are greatly affected by how much/little salt you add
- rate of evaporation - affects how crystals form
- rate of cooling - also affects crystal growth
Notes
I found that I got the best results using a very small amount of salt. I was aiming to duplicate the fern shape that can result from boiling
salted pasta, but I was pleased with the ring effect. If you use uniodized salt, you may get salt crystal cubes rather than rings. More complex shapes resulted when I tried sea salt and aquarium salt. Other salts will work for this project (e.g.,
borax, epsom salts). Sugar is not a good choice, since it will burn and possibly ruin your cookware.
