Homemade Piezoelectric Material

[johnjohnson]

I modified the procedure and got amazing results. To 120 ml water, add 80 grams cream of tartar (kroger brand use). Hold at 95 C in a water bath, adding 1 gram sodium bicarbonate (kroger brand) at intervals until all cream of tartar has reacted. Decant and filter with coffee filter. Pour fluid on ceramic plate. Add 20 ml of 99% isopropyl alcohol 5 times at 10 minute intervals. Let stand under a fan for 1 hour and 30 minutes. Longer may yield larger crystals, however these were sufficient for my purposes. Yield is approximately 90 crystals, 40 of which are large (1 cm or more) and uniform. Crystals have a clear appearance.

[carlosalbertosilva]

really very interesting and practical to produce at home, I really want to thank you for sharing your knowledge, hugs from Brazil.

[barrykelly]

Whoa! That was awesome! When you connected the two meter probes, another hand tapped the crystal.
That's some potent Brian White mix you cooked up!

[buzzwerd]

Sweet! Can you grow a crystal between two metal plates?
When using commercial audio pickups I found that diodes/leds flatten spikes from hard smacks. An opto-isolator can make a CMOS-safe switch. But those crystals use more exotic elements.

[VC_]

Thank you. I learnt something new today!

[AutoNomades]

Wow genius, thanks !! I wonder if coupled with a (broken but not fallen) securit glass it could generate enough electricity to be usable.. As this kind of glass tend to crack like a fire almost indefinitively with any heat, vibrations, mouvement in the room...

[P.i]

Would you happen to know why it might go wrong? I did what you explained and have the crystals but cannot get any voltage off of it. I tried using pure water and sodium "carbonate" and still not workin!

[omsingharjit]

I heard that cane sugar is also pizoelectric so why not table suger ?

[dreadcomic]

Hey so does it also react to sound and generate power that way

[rndullrobinson]

I've always been curious about pizo fabrics, is there such a thing?

[qx]

Fantastic good experiment and result. I really love it. Make more experiments if you know.

[DimebagGaurav]

Does slow cooling will make larger crystal like silicon single crystal growth? You can use thermoelectric chamber at home to do that

[firebirdsMI]

Was wondering if you can show the mechanical deformations it will show with applied external voltage.

[davidprock]

What happens if you crush them into dust and put them in a vacuum seal bag, have metal probes in bag making contact before sealing, basically looking to get a sheet

[kreynolds]

The brownish color looks like impurities in the solution. You can get better crystals if you apply a recrystallization process first.

Recrystalization.
1) After filtering the solution put it on heat again to evaporate off water untill you see the first crystal forming.
2) Then chill it to almost freezing so as to get the most crystals.
3) Take all the crystals out and put in just enough heated distilled water to redissolve all the crystals you have collected. Then let the solution cool and your crystals will be much more pure than the crystals from the start.

Then to get a large crystal after recrystalization.
1) taking out a good crystal you want to use as a seed crystal and put it aside.
2) Then reheat the solution along with the poor crystals untill they have disappeared add a tiny amount of water if nessesary.
3) take the solution off the heat and shortly afterwards reinsert your good crystal as the seed crystal.

[arash]

A question please:
What is the difference between flintstone (firestone) and piezoelectric or amorph?

[sukiyadiae]

Thanks for sharing Susana. very helpful to finish the homework

[desaiparth]

Hello mam please answer my questions how can make piezoelectric ceramics in use lighters

[seyedmarashi]

excellent! well done, please replace commercial piezzo with your material and check result like microphone or Speaker. i mean if you give voltage to material crystal the amp. current usage will be give nice result. thanks again

[vincentasare]

Nice experiment...is there a way of getting the piezo crystals to coagulate to get larger crystals.?