Why salt crystals grow as pyramids (sometimes)

[ianhurst]

Props to Mr. Fontana for taking all the effort to make a presentation in english! Good man who seems really passionate about what he does.

[miguelrodriguez-dfww]

I love that he set up a powerpoint lol makes it feel like he was excited to talk about it!

[ryanawol]

Bless you Dr. Fontana. You didn't have to force yourself to speak English, and you didn't have to prepare slide shows to help us understand better, yet you did.

It truly is an honour to be able to learn from you about salt.

[JackDarbs]

ive worked at the Maldon Salt factory and I can honestly say that you made this whole process a hell of a lot more interesting than those at the factory did.

[bopman]

Nothing is more pure than the excitement on Adam's face when he starts talking about space salt growing at 9:39

[ho-hyongyoo]

Adam getting all these experts for fact videos are something else

[CrazyMegaOmega]

love seeing the grin Dr.Fontana got when talking about the space crystals

[FutureCommentary]

Thank you so much Dr Pietro Fontana for taking the time to share your immense knowledge with us.

[ninischmid]

Dr Fontana seemed very excited to tell us about this topic, makes me really happy seeing him talk so passionately about it

Edit : Ohh thanks for the likes, didn’t thought anyone would see the comment

[coffeefox]

When I read the title, I thought salt crystals grew "inside" pyramids - like Egyptian pyramids.

I guess I won't ever get to try tomb salt one day. :(

[fiveminutezen]

I reached out to the Nile Red YouTube channel to see if the channel would be interested in taking this project on. The guy who performs the chemistry experiments on that channel is always fascinating and entertaining much like yourself. I would love to see the two of you do something together. This sounds like a perfect crossover project.

[theprogrammer]

11:44 I've made tons of salt crystals just like those! I've only made hopper crystals accidentally, but in the past I've tried to make big "cubes" many times, with limited success.
I think the vodka helped dilute the ions and made the crystals grow more slowly, basically the opposite of what you are trying to do.

If I were to give you any tips for growing hopper crystals, it would be to try to emulate the fleur de sal method a bit more, maybe insulating / cooling the bottom of the bowls and putting a fan over the top of the bowl. Also, if you're patient, I don't recommend making supersaturated solutions by heating them up and putting more salt in. That tends to really mess stuff up when you want a specific crystal growth. I can also recommend having a PURE salt solution - like, REALLY pure. I know it doesn't look to clean to see them growing salt over literal dirt, but I can assure you any contaminants / anti-caking agents will greatly affect the crystal's nucleation, as well as tendencies to agglomerate / form a raft. An easy way to do this is by using a pure pickling salt, and running the solution through a coffee filter right before pouring it out into bowls - if you're not already. However, since Maldon uses "sea salt" then normal pickling salt will not be the same. Sea salt has other ions in it like Mg and Ca, and these will also affect the growing tendencies. Not all sea salt is the same, though, so it would be really handy if you could analyze some of Maldon's sea salt to see roughly what concentrations of elements they have. You might also be able to do some undercover investigating by asking them where specifically they source theirs!

Anyways, good luck! Salt crystals are VERY finnicky, but replicating something that's been perfected to a T should be at least doable. I want to grow bigger, clearer cubes, like natural Halite crystals, but they take years of water filtering through rocks to grow like that 😭

[anegginthesetryingtimes]

If you are looking for other things to try, my first addition to your method would be testing out different speeds on a magnetic stirrer. Small initial investment, but a hands free agitator that works from the bottom up -- not something that you stick into the brine from the top and stir, which would mess with your prospective hopper crystals floating at the surface.

[ritwikgupta]

Dr. Fontana seems like such a nice professor!

[jdrew]

Between the scientist and the reporter we have a clear understanding of salt crystals. Well done gentlemen.

[SuperCookieGaming_]

funny that adam has to explain hoppers as something from industry but most people under 25 will know it from minecraft.




edit: In theory you don't need to do the skimming part if you can get the water thin enough right? if you can find the height of the hopper crystals when they sink then just make your brine solution super thin. that is probably extremely hard to do because of water's surface tension causing it to stay together even on a perfectly flat surface. the other option is to find an additive that decreases water's surface tension dramatically, is non toxic to humans, and doesn't bond/interfere with salt hopper crystals forming.

[derkateramabend]

As a Swiss person myself, I was really happy when I heard Dr Fontana's Swiss accent in one of your videos ^^ Really interesting topic as well, great job Mr Ragusea!

[TextileGeorge]

I love your videos Adam, you are a great model for journalists, you try hard to be unbiased, highly informed and you cover important and interesting topics many people dont even consider

[daviddet]

As a chemist, I absolutely love videos like this because it's always fascinating seeing where two of my biggest passions intersect. And I ALWAYS learn something whenever I watch one of your videos. I'm super grateful that you clearly take the time and effort to truly understand a subject before you bring it to us, and it's refreshing seeing content that's so well-informed.

And I'm not an expert (though I do grow a lot of crystals in lab), but my best guess at trying to solve the salt crystal dilemma would be to use supersaturated solution just to initiate the crystal growth, and then when you use it to seed another solution, make it less concentrated than fully saturated. I like to get my solutions to the point just before saturation and let evaporation take it down the rest of the way.

[JETZcorp]

Hey Adam, I recently uncovered a big can of worms that I think could be a classic Ragusea research topic. It has to do with how often people go to the store and buy groceries.

Living in American suburbs (Portland, OR in case it matters), I grew up with the family going to the store every 1-2 weeks, loading up fridge freezer and pantry, and then eating from the stockpile until it's no longer practical. Recently it has come to my attention that a very large portion of the world buys their groceries day-of or day-before. The topic arose from a discussion (argument) about urban planning and transportation. Cities in the US, Canada, etc are primarily low-density and designed for cars, whereas in Europe and many other places, they tend to be higher density and lean primarily on mass transit. I expressed dismay at how one could possibly get their 2 weeks' supply of groceries while relying on light rail, and this was the first many of them had heard of such a thing.

This lead to a bit of mutual culture shock. They couldn't imagine how I could keep 2 weeks' worth of bread (7 loaves for 2 people) fresh. I couldn't imagine anyone eating that much bread. I'll buy 1 loaf of sourdough and have real trouble getting through it in 2 weeks. They imagined the only reason one might shop for more than 1 day of food was because it takes 45 minutes for an American to drive to the grocery store (a fashionable myth that probably comes from LA and NYC having a duopoly on media). Whereas to most Americans I know, the only reason one would schlep to the store every single day would be due to not owning a car for whatever exotic reason ($8/gal gas, roads designed circa Caesar or Stalin, etc).

All this leads to some interesting thoughts and questions. How much does something as seemingly unrelated as road planning affect our diets? When you have no choice but to get your food fresh every day, there's a lot less demand for something that'll be shelf-stable for weeks. Which method leads to more food waste, the one which gives food more time to go bad, or the one in which more foods are use-it-or-lose-it? Speaking of food waste, create less of it with the sponsor of today's comment, HelloFresh! The Europeans I spoke to tended to think I was lying when I said my lettuce stayed fresh for 2 weeks. Does that mean we're storing it differently, or are the lettuces different (GMOs, cold chain, etc)? Is this even a difference between the US and Europe, or are there large populations living both ways everywhere? Is there a nation-level correlation between car ownership and consumption of frozen and processed foods? And most importantly, how in the name of all that is holy can people eat that much bread and still be healthy?