Table Salt Crystals

You can see the shape of a salt crystal under a microscope and you can grow your own salt crystals for fun or for a science fair.

Table salt crystals.

We also made coloured salt by adding a little food colouring. Iodized salt won t work as well but will still form crystals. An easy way to make salt crystals is to dissolve table salt in water and leave the solution somewhere warm until the water evaporates leaving behind sparkly salt crystals. Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride nacl a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts.

Table salt takes a few days to grow. Alum grow quickly sometimes making visible crystals within a few hours. Salt in its natural form as a crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite salt is present in vast quantities in seawater where it is the main mineral constituent the open ocean has about 35 grams 1 2 oz of solids per liter of sea water a salinity of 3 5. Epsom salt grows into smaller needle like crystals but grows more quickly than table salt.