[mir]

I left some 10% hypochlorite solution in my hood over the weekend. And while the oxidant decomposed it saturated the saltwater solution:

2 NaOCl --> 2 NaCl + O₂

Some beautiful sodium chloride crystals emerged after two days. Some of them actually floats (they are hollow). I wonder what happens if you leave it standing for weeks.

Sodium hypochlorite is made by bubbling chlorine gas through a sodium hydroxide solution, with sodium chloride as one of its byproducts. So the hypochlorite solution is already quite salty when you by it from the store.

[enahs]

Bah. Tell us how you made these wonderful beautiful and interesting crystals. Sure you did.


Take pictures next time!

[mir]

 

[profmsg]

while concerting benzo nitrile to benzoic acid, the dissolved benzoic acid were left on beaker with stirring form  magnetic stirrer, after few hours, i saw a very very nice shinny, uniforms crystals of benzoic acid appeared. the benzoic acid confrmatins was done by IR. i guess, continuous stirring uniformly also gives  very nice  crystals but only small part will crystallize .


 

[AWK]

Amount of crystals depends on oversaturation of solution and on the speed of crystallization (by removing of thr solvent or by lowering of the temperature).

The best compounds for obtaining good big crystals (even of kilograms) are alums, eg KAl(SO4)2 or KCr(SO4)2.