Try using hydrochloric acid to shine those crystals up. HCl will not affect the copper but it will dissolve the oxides from the surface of the crystals. You will be left with very shiney crystals.
Hmm, probably because the freshly exposed surfaces oxidize very quickly. Maybe after a hcl treatment you could spray them in urethane to preserve the luster. Just something to block the oxygen.
I was like totally meh about it. I had my heart set on Rutherfordium. No one just does that sort of thing anymore. Kids, these days, always going for the common metals. Not a care in the world for how that shit's just gonna turn green someday like the pine needles it looks like anyway. And where's the challenge? Rutherfordium has a half life in it's most stable form of only 1.3 hours. Try your little crystal growing experiment while dealing with unruly daughter products and the source metal spittin out alphas like a boss all the way. You wanna impress the world on TH-cam? Walk on the edge a little, bro. Show some chutzpah.
@Mister Dicken I have, long long ago. Alum makes seriously pretty crystals - very complex and crystal clear like glass. One of the easiest things in the world to get a big, pretty crystal out of.
@Mister Dicken For water soluble things like alum, salt or sugar, all you really need to do is heat water and stir in your crystal making chemical of choice until no more will dissolve. This is called 'Super saturation", and crystals will start to grow on any suitable surface as soon as the liquid cools. The usual method is to hang a string in the liquid and just let it be with the top open so the liquid can evaporate and more and more crystals will grow on the string. To get a really nice crystal for display, you can take a crystal grown that way and hang it from a string in more supersaturated solution of the same type that made the crystal. The crystal will then immediately start to grow, acting as a perfect target for growth in the container. Doing it this way over and over, you can make a really big, really pretty crystal. Getting a perfect crystal is challenging, but growing huge ones that are kind of random is actually pretty easy.
@Mister Dicken Watched the video. That's quite a setup. I've never seen crystals grown that way, lol I guess that's like the hardcore method. Pretty cool.
If you place the anode into a very fine mesh plastic container or a nylon cloth bag you will keep the 'slimes' and other unwanted contaminants from settling out on the bottom of the reaction vessel. Streetips demonstrates this method in some of his silver cell posts. I also use this method and it works quite well.
Copper wont oxidize if you store it dry and dont touch it. I have a piece of copper that im storing my showcase for 15 years now, and it still has that metallic gleam.
@@Bullshitvol2 yup watch a brand new copper sheet metal roof panel about three weeks after being handled while installing and the finger and hand prints are comical
I use a 32 qt PP dog food container as a crystal growing cell. You can start the process with water and sulphuric acid, the copper sulphate will evolve from that naturally. I also do not cast anode bars. I use an anode bag and a titanium anode. In fact, I call it the TAPP cell (Titanium Anode Parting Process). In this cell, I'm removing the copper substrate from gold plated pins in the anode bag and collecting large copper crystals on the cathode wire. My cathode wire is just an insulated 10 gauge wire, with about one inch stripped clean. To date I've grown several large crystals, the largest being right at 2kg as a single pure crystal. If you leave the seed wire straight, it can be twisted and extracted from the finished crystal.
We need too talk lol...I've been talking too chat gpt and it suggested using copper sulphate water and using zinc too grow the metal crystals on and the bot seems too think theoretically you can grow an equal weight off copper too weight off zinc you put into the solution...I'm sure it said no electric even needed for this method..but I would be interested too get a zinc roof sheet n submerge in the solution n just forget about it for a while n see what happens...but if you could do this effectively I would fill several Bath tubs up n grow copper as a passive income just take too scrapyard once a year with it...but it also said with the zinc in there you can also add certain crystals and it will grow around the crystals so there's something there crystals encased in grown copper you could even add small magnets n make these healing bracelets but difference being your crystals gems n magnets would be encased inside your cool copper crystal chunks so deffo some buisness Ideas floating around here...if you got good at producing the copper at a low cost I'd fill a swimming pool up 😂😂...but hey If you wanna bounce ideas mate I'm always up for a buisnesss venture I have a good brain for thinking outside the box so lemme know cheers
@jshaw4757 My problem with actually making the copper crystals an actual side project turned out to be, "How does one effectively prevent oxidation afterwards?". Wash in water to remove the excess copper sulphate, then wash in alcohol to remove the water, then mineral spirits(?), before coating it in some very thin polimerizing oil(?) (Like linseed oil?). Most of these would have looked good in a display dome. Screwed to the base plate on a short polished piece of copper plumbing pipe as a pedestal.
A couple small adjustments for those interested in doing this. 1: Use copper chloride instead of a sulfate or penta-hydrate! It's easy to make and will produce cleaner crystals much faster! It will also produce some obnoxious gas but not a lot. 2: Buy a platinum coated anode & cathode. They're surprisingly cheap, they won't dissolve as rapidly & they will yield larger crystals! Once you've made these adjustments, dial up the energy & you'll replicate these results in days!
This was really cool man! Thanks for taking the time and effort to make this video! I'm just now getting into this, I remember making salt crystals back in the day in science class. But these looks really cool and I'll deff would like to try this out. I know I can get ahold of good amounts of copper at work. So I'll probably start by saving and getting together as much copper as I can and then making it into a nice big bar or something in order to make my crystals when I'm ready. I actually think I'm going to try this out first before I try working with bismuth. Any way thanks for the vid once again dude!
Use "vasoline" to coat those areas of our wire you do not want to grow crystals on...reduce the growing area and you will increase your crystal size...especially if you also reduce the voltage down to a little bit under 1.0 volts.
The cloudiness you saw after dissolving CuSO4 is not "impurities" - at least not all of it. Copper sulfate is known to partially hydrolyze into insoluble Cu(OH)2 in water. To prevent it add a little bit of sulfuric acid. If don't have it, HCl will suffice, too.
Iwhat would you get when growing these in a 200 gallon tank over two years or more, cathode centralized in the tank, anode around the perimeter, growing up from the bottom.🤔
Like the good old days at the company Platinum facility in South Africa. We mined nickel in the Transvaal and sent it to Norway. The Norwegians refined it like your copper precess. They kept the nickel as payment for their electrcity and sent the sludge from the tanks back to us. We used fluorine chemistry to extract the Platinum group metgals from that sludge.
I say the much darker ones as you go down the growth are rather beautiful and add a more interesting feel towards them, so in my opinion I'd keep the much more beautiful form of darker crystals since it does add to the unique side of it ^-^ amazing video!
You can't do this with aluminum as it is too reactive. You can however with lead and bismuth. My next crystal growing video was going to be on manganese but I burnt out my platinized anode trying to do so. I've got another element I am working on now and should hopefully be out before too long
you can do that with aluminium, but this requires ionic liquids, air and water free techniques and a still experimental method from basf ou phillips, i don't remember which.
Growing bismuth crystals with electrolysis is much too complicated. Just melt the stuff and pick out the crystals while the bismuth cools down. For larger bismuth crystals, you can use basically the same method used to grow silicium crystals. Takes some minutes and you get a big crystal.
You can also do it with tin. I actually believe that tin crystals are the best. The problem is they are very fragile so you have to be extremely careful with them.
try using different concentrations of sulphiric acid. You'll see much more clear crystals, or shape change due to growth speed (only applying to clusters)
As awesome as this is, I don't know what you'd do with the crystals after you grow them. They're too brittle for jewelry, unless you set them in resin, so I'm a little confused.lol
How the crystals are gown will have much to do with how brittle they are. The ones I grow, in the course of doing other things, are very tough. I put them on my big belt sander and they take a while to grind down. I use around a half volt and distilled water, rather than tap water.
@@michaelz6870 I make wood turnings from blanks I made. The blanks are two pieces of wood, such as walnut or mahogany, sandwiching a piece of clear but colored plastic about 1/4" thick. When turned and polished, I add turnings I copper plated to the ends and, sometimes, the top. Some of the turnings have these crystals growing on them "somewhat" framing a part of the turning I did not plate. When done, the combined effects make nice looking, unique ornaments. I suppose I should go post a few someplace like Flicker so I can direct folks to them. Meanwhile, the closest I can get to that is on the Instructables web pages. You can either do a under a search my name or use the following link: www.instructables.com/id/Making-Light-Catching-Laminated-Wood-Plastic-and-C/ You can see a few more examples of how I'm using them [but again, the post is missing the "crystal version version] at the LumberJocks web site at: www.lumberjocks.com/projects/399169
@@jasonolascuaga4734 never got to do this one, but I got her a colored Crystal kit and we also made some crystals on a copper plate and a good size 12v battery
Really beautiful. I wonder if you were to limit the current instead of the voltage on your power supply, if you'd get thicker individual crystals (instead of the tree branch, fractal-like pattern).
Work for a automotive front grill plating company and we would have giant nickel and copper crystal in the tank laying everywhere when tank was cleaned out.i didnt know it was crystalized back then.
You can add surfactants to prevent the crystals from branching out. The pointiest regions gets deposited first which is why you need to add surfactants to cap those regions.
Are u a science teacher? I think it’s cool. Glad my son majored in neutrons and chemistry he should be able to do this I think lol Hey I’m just here to pay the bills lol
@@PorgsLookTasty I'm gonna guess you wanted to learn something when you watched how to make goulash, yes? #alantutorials is a a web series that teaches... nothing. His earliest videos are tutorials like getting a piece of paper wet. As time went on, his uploads got stranger, and eventually it becomes apparent that this was someone's art project, a video series with a beginning, middle, end. When I heard of this, I had to see it, and now YT thinks I wanna learn all the stuff. If you look up the videos, be warned: some people thought it was real. It's NOT real. Alan is an actor.
this took me 8 months, largest crystal facet was 4mm, add vinegar to sprout super dendritic crystals, add a tiny bit of HCl to penetrate to the base of the branches, at lower current density. too much HCl stuffs it up to high current density and it bubbles, below the bubble threshold toy get amorphous deposits, drop the current density even more and you get the crystal facets
What concentrations of vinegar and HCl are we talking about? And what does the HCl do? 4mm crystal facet is just about what im after (so not "amorphous" like in the video), so actual data would be appreciated. Would reverse voltages help to clean it up? Maybe 1% duty cylcle?
about half to 1/4 by volume of vinegar, causes copious dendrites, harvest and recycle dendrites, but without a half coke top HCl /3litre of CuSO4/Cu-acetate(from memory, but sneak up on that concentration.. too much will stuff it up)there is no penetration ... photos available on my google plus page.ie the chloride holds on to its copper right to the very last or something like that, acetate will drop its copper as soon as it can, hence the dendrites
one other thing, it takes less than 30 seconds for salty wet copper to oxidise, so be quick, have a bath of DI water ready, and hit it with metho asap, as it is a powerful dehydrant , tissue/hot air dry, do not handle with greasy fingers,
Was wondering if this has ever come across your mind to send one of your crystals to a wood spinner so that u can incase it in epoxy and shape it in to sphere would be cool if possible
I have excess copper solution from purifying metals and jewelry. I will try this and see if it grows copper without adding crystals. It usually starts with silver that i cement out on copper. Reactivity series silver and copper trade places. I hope it works.
Hello sir! Thank you for the fantastic video!. I am curious, if you have a bar of brass or bronze, could you separate out the copper from the brass or bronze using this method? Leaving the other alloy as a sludge?
The tin/zinc from the alloy would likely dissolve in the sulphate environment unless you used a potentiostat 3 electrode cell arrangement to control the dissolution conditions
that dust is the 'anode mud' that is created as the copper is stripped out of the impure bar. all it is are the impurities from the anode that are left behind during this process. (i have been doing a LOT of research into this kind of process.)
Not that it really matters for an experiment like this, but just in case no one's already mentioned it, the anode is always negative and the cathode is positive. You can remember because ca(+)hode has a plus sign in the middle of it.
It is defined by the direction of current, not the polarity of the voltage. This makes things complicated when you get to things like batteries where which electrode is the cathode and which is the anode depends on whether you are charging or discharging. An anode is the electrode in which conventional current enters the cell. Alternatively, you can define it as the electrode in which electrons leave the cell. Conventional current flows from the positive voltage to the negative, so the anode is actually connected to the positive lead and puddin is correct. In a battery cell that is discharging, the anode is the negative plate of the battery, so that is probably why you are confused about this. An electrochemical cell is different from a battery, but is closer to a charging battery cell in function than it is to a discharging battery cell.
Can I assume that the copper crystals are 100% pure copper.. or at the very least 99% copper.... and any of the non conductive stuff that was in the bar just falls to the bottom? or will it transfer any conductive metals too, like leads, tin, etc. ... this was pretty neat... What does the copper sulfate actually do, just allow the water to be conductive...for the electrolysis process? Have you ever seen how they purify to 99.99% after they smelt scrap copper into bars of large (tones at a time) in the smelters, and I think they use extremely high amperage, but the copper lay on the plates evenly, not in crystal form... that is what I want to do. but, I am not smart enough to figure it out.. what is your guess, or is it too dangerous to do?
Instead of using a Dremmel on the dark ones, try painting it with a little acid flux paste, let it sit for 30-60 secs (more if needed), and then wash it off. I use this technique to polish up the exposed 10 gauge wires inside my box mods. I strip the insulation and use thick solid core to give a steampunk look (like copper tubing) to the box. Over time, they darken and dull, but the flux brightens them right up.
It would be interesting to see what would be the effect on the crystal growth if one uses an AC current where frequency and amplitude is not symmetrical to 0 point. This could also be combined with different anodes activated at different dimes to add different metals to the crystal.
Dacian Herbei Are you trying to say it has a DC bias offset? To use different metals you need different solutions. You make the solution by starting with two masses of the same metal in an electrolyte (baking soda and water) and then switching the anode to the receiving object once the electrolyte is saturated ( blue for copper). You can do this with almost every metal. When using some metals the voltage controls the color(oxidation states) so you can literally paint the surface with colored metals. However, the donor metal must be anode and the receiving object cathode.
richard vaughn yes this is what I meant. But also it would be interesting to have an AC current with really low frequency to create like a wave pattern like the waves of a sea.
Dacian Herbei Doesnt work that way. The crystals form the same way regardless of the current. Maybe you should attach the anode to a slow moving arm that swings back and forth once each day. So that the thickness of deposits would cause a waviness. (thickest deposits will be at the lowest resistance path...the shortest distance between the 2 electrodes)
@@isawondfl1I'm not an expert by any means but I believe the point is they are extremely pure. No amount of smelting and fluxing could get it to that point. A good example is the anode he used was cast copper but most of that sludge that came off wasn't even copper
Sulfuric acid will clean away dark areas without dissolving the copper, and you get better results by adding sulfuric acid to the water. The best water is distilled or deionized as the minerals is a problem. I notice the many crystals, but what about a single crystal of copper? The process here is the same as what is used to purify copper, and instead of reducing the voltage to reduce the current it works better with that supply to set the constant current to your desired maximum current and then set the voltage to where you want it and that depends on the conductivity of the solution. This can easily be found in most electroplating and electroforming books, and I suggest staying with the copper sulfate and sulfuric acid solution, as cyanide is too dangerous to be doing at home, light smell of almonds and you could be dead sort of thing. Also using acetic acid does not give as good of results, and I recommend buying the sulfuric acid as battery acid as it is slightly diluted and safer to handle than concentrated. Always pour acid into water NEVER water into acid.
As pure as it gets. Impurities are still there because of unlucky impurities getting atomically trapped inside by pure chance. If you keep the anode and cathode in separate containers with a tube between them, so that the impurities falling off the donor metal don't pollute, the purity increases, but then you have basically hit the limit with how pure you can get it. Electrochemical processing is the way one purifies metals as much as possible.
How about an aux jack cord as a starting point? Cut it two inches from the jack, strip the casing off and fan the wires out. Then just clamp it to the power. Depending on the size wire inside you could have lots of starting points.
I just wanted to add that this process started with crystals, put into solution & then it was 2 months electroplating. He simply transferred the copper from a ingot to a wire 1 ion at a time(hence it's tensile strength.) Copper crystals are actually blue - bluish green To anyone asking what to do with said crystals I ask you to explore chemistry some! I personally hobby in pyrotechnics with the crystals i synthesis! I'll purify the crystals, re-dissolve into solution & impregnate into campfire logs to make campfires that burn 100% blue-green!
I know that some other metals when plated are brittle because of hydrogen embrittlement, so when making thick layers annealing is helpful.. so I wonder if that has anything to do with the copper being brittle
Interesting video, good job 👍 thinking of giving it a go. Does the bowl need to be glass or would plastic be ok? How many times can the copper sulfate solution be used before it needs to be changed? I would imagine it just needs changed when the crystals stop growing /meaning there isn't any copper left in the solution?
Plastic works just as well but I find that the copper dust stains the plastic. The solution can keep being used near indefinitely as long as you properly filter and recrystallize every so often. It is also pretty dependent on how pure the copper anode you are using. You don't really run the solution out of copper as you are depositing it back in with the anode being dissolved. The big killer of the solution is the other metals besides copper being dissolved but as I mentioned as long as you filter and recrystallize you should be good to keep using it.
You allow the used copper sulfate to dry out until about 95% of the water is gone. Then you pour off the remaining liquid (this will contain most of the impurities). Your bulk of crystals should then be mostly pure copper sulfate again. You can later on down the line process down the 5% you pour off each time in a separate batch to get the rest of your copper sulfate. NurdRage did an awesome video on this that will most certainly help: th-cam.com/video/uVA0rK_VITY/w-d-xo.html
I have a huge question that never seems to be answered... Are the fumes from the copper sulfate toxic? I have a similar set up in my garage, but I'm very leary about having my kids around the area, and i usually have a fume respirator on.
Thanks for the video, I'm not understanding what makes the current flow come from the + to deposit the crystals on the - when DC current is from the - to the +. if you use an air defuser like that of a small fish tank to agitate your solution with an increase in amps up to 1 amp would it not deposit more a lot sooner? Thanks again.
Nice. What would happen if you used a constant current driver - would it give better results or would the growth just grind to a halt because of the increasing surface area?
Those power supplies can go from constant voltage or constant current. In my experience with growing silver crystal, constant current results in long, thin needle like spikes. Looks like superman's fortress of solitude
your description of anode and cathode takes things off course. Anode is where conventional current (imagine positive current carriers not electrons) flow into a device. Cathode they flow out.
This is not a matter of dealing with tubes or other electronics. In plating processes, the anode is the plate, wire, beads, pipe or what have you connected to the positive side of the supply and from which the current flows. The electrons drawn by the cathode tied to the negative DC lead.
how much copper can i desolve using your coil method ? i finally made crystal using car battry acid and your coil method but. will it be better to concentrate barrty acid first? if i keep conecting fresh copper will it desolve forever or will the acid burn off eventually?
I wonder how they perform as antennas. Wide bandwidth? Can you grow them while say, supplying a physical vibration frequency to the cathode as it grows? Also, you may get better results if you allow gravity to help you, e.g. placing the anode at the bottom of the container, whilst the cathode remains saturated at the top. I used to have some very old crystal chemistry growing books and was fascinated to learn that the trick to growing crystals is to find out what "feeding" system works best, while resonance and temperature, all the way down to which direction your "feeding" solvent rotated, (clockwise or counter clockwise), to the frequency of the light, to the shape and orientation of the electrodes. It is indeed not only a science but an art. Thank you for the education.
“This doesn’t need to be perfect by any means.”
*spends several minutes making micro-adjustments.”
“There we go, perfect!”
Lol love it
Try using hydrochloric acid to shine those crystals up. HCl will not affect the copper but it will dissolve the oxides from the surface of the crystals. You will be left with very shiney crystals.
I did try using HCL to shine them up a while back and it does work for a day or two. After that though they turn very very dull.
Hmm, probably because the freshly exposed surfaces oxidize very quickly. Maybe after a hcl treatment you could spray them in urethane to preserve the luster. Just something to block the oxygen.
Could you reverse the current for a few hours before you pull them out?
for the smaller crystals why not encase it in resin then turn it into a necklace or something?
rvarnum just curious as to why you would want too. Do you think it would cause something else to happen?
This looks like the most complicated fried chicken recipe on the planet.
😂😂😂
Extra Cu-rispy ! 🤣🤣🤣
Probably tastes like shit too
@@bullie86 Probably breaking your teeth too :D
I was thinking of that I swear I was about to comment it
oh nice i was looking for a good copper crystal growing tutorial
I was like totally meh about it. I had my heart set on Rutherfordium. No one just does that sort of thing anymore. Kids, these days, always going for the common metals. Not a care in the world for how that shit's just gonna turn green someday like the pine needles it looks like anyway. And where's the challenge? Rutherfordium has a half life in it's most stable form of only 1.3 hours. Try your little crystal growing experiment while dealing with unruly daughter products and the source metal spittin out alphas like a boss all the way. You wanna impress the world on TH-cam? Walk on the edge a little, bro. Show some chutzpah.
@Mister Dicken I have, long long ago. Alum makes seriously pretty crystals - very complex and crystal clear like glass. One of the easiest things in the world to get a big, pretty crystal out of.
@Mister Dicken For water soluble things like alum, salt or sugar, all you really need to do is heat water and stir in your crystal making chemical of choice until no more will dissolve. This is called 'Super saturation", and crystals will start to grow on any suitable surface as soon as the liquid cools. The usual method is to hang a string in the liquid and just let it be with the top open so the liquid can evaporate and more and more crystals will grow on the string.
To get a really nice crystal for display, you can take a crystal grown that way and hang it from a string in more supersaturated solution of the same type that made the crystal. The crystal will then immediately start to grow, acting as a perfect target for growth in the container. Doing it this way over and over, you can make a really big, really pretty crystal. Getting a perfect crystal is challenging, but growing huge ones that are kind of random is actually pretty easy.
@Mister Dicken Watched the video. That's quite a setup. I've never seen crystals grown that way, lol I guess that's like the hardcore method. Pretty cool.
I love youtubers, they do things so I don't have to.
That's pretty cool. I would've left all the crystalson the wire and made a glass case for it to display the big crystal
tyler krug YES!!
KFC (Kentucky Fried Copper) - extra Cu-rispy !! 🤣🤣🤣🤣
If this comment ☝️ does not end up with at least 1k likes....
This should be pinned.
I don't know why but that killed me
This... is perfect.
If you place the anode into a very fine mesh plastic container or a nylon cloth bag you will keep the 'slimes' and other unwanted contaminants from settling out on the bottom of the reaction vessel. Streetips demonstrates this method in some of his silver cell posts. I also use this method and it works quite well.
Nice to see another sreetips viewer in the wild
To preserve crystals from oxydating during electrolysis you can add some sulfuric acid. Grown crystals can be saved in 0.5 -1% H2SO4
it dissolves copper oxides
Copper wont oxidize if you store it dry and dont touch it. I have a piece of copper that im storing my showcase for 15 years now, and it still has that metallic gleam.
@@Bullshitvol2 yup watch a brand new copper sheet metal roof panel about three weeks after being handled while installing and the finger and hand prints are comical
if u add h2so4 during electrolysis, u will make them into cuso4
for saving that crystal....mineral oil / resin / argon is good choicesssss
I use a 32 qt PP dog food container as a crystal growing cell. You can start the process with water and sulphuric acid, the copper sulphate will evolve from that naturally. I also do not cast anode bars. I use an anode bag and a titanium anode. In fact, I call it the TAPP cell (Titanium Anode Parting Process). In this cell, I'm removing the copper substrate from gold plated pins in the anode bag and collecting large copper crystals on the cathode wire. My cathode wire is just an insulated 10 gauge wire, with about one inch stripped clean. To date I've grown several large crystals, the largest being right at 2kg as a single pure crystal. If you leave the seed wire straight, it can be twisted and extracted from the finished crystal.
We need too talk lol...I've been talking too chat gpt and it suggested using copper sulphate water and using zinc too grow the metal crystals on and the bot seems too think theoretically you can grow an equal weight off copper too weight off zinc you put into the solution...I'm sure it said no electric even needed for this method..but I would be interested too get a zinc roof sheet n submerge in the solution n just forget about it for a while n see what happens...but if you could do this effectively I would fill several Bath tubs up n grow copper as a passive income just take too scrapyard once a year with it...but it also said with the zinc in there you can also add certain crystals and it will grow around the crystals so there's something there crystals encased in grown copper you could even add small magnets n make these healing bracelets but difference being your crystals gems n magnets would be encased inside your cool copper crystal chunks so deffo some buisness Ideas floating around here...if you got good at producing the copper at a low cost I'd fill a swimming pool up 😂😂...but hey If you wanna bounce ideas mate I'm always up for a buisnesss venture I have a good brain for thinking outside the box so lemme know cheers
@jshaw4757
My problem with actually making the copper crystals an actual side project turned out to be, "How does one effectively prevent oxidation afterwards?". Wash in water to remove the excess copper sulphate, then wash in alcohol to remove the water, then mineral spirits(?), before coating it in some very thin polimerizing oil(?) (Like linseed oil?). Most of these would have looked good in a display dome. Screwed to the base plate on a short polished piece of copper plumbing pipe as a pedestal.
A couple small adjustments for those interested in doing this.
1: Use copper chloride instead of a sulfate or penta-hydrate! It's easy to make and will produce cleaner crystals much faster! It will also produce some obnoxious gas but not a lot.
2: Buy a platinum coated anode & cathode. They're surprisingly cheap, they won't dissolve as rapidly & they will yield larger crystals!
Once you've made these adjustments, dial up the energy & you'll replicate these results in days!
Only use copper chloride if you want to knock yourself out with chlorine gas!
If you are using copper chloride it’s probably safer to do the electrolysis outside!
Back to WWII hahaha
@@atticspliffer Fuck the Geneva Convention, this is science!!
This is so beautiful! Looks like little plants or corals.
This was really cool man! Thanks for taking the time and effort to make this video! I'm just now getting into this, I remember making salt crystals back in the day in science class. But these looks really cool and I'll deff would like to try this out. I know I can get ahold of good amounts of copper at work. So I'll probably start by saving and getting together as much copper as I can and then making it into a nice big bar or something in order to make my crystals when I'm ready. I actually think I'm going to try this out first before I try working with bismuth. Any way thanks for the vid once again dude!
Use "vasoline" to coat those areas of our wire you do not want to grow crystals on...reduce the growing area and you will increase your crystal size...especially if you also reduce the voltage down to a little bit under 1.0 volts.
anything of quality in chemistry takes a long time. Good video
Explosions.
This was way more interesting than I initially thought.
Happy to see that kid is interested in dad's project
My spaceships on empty I'm so glad I found this. Quick trip to Walmart and I'm on my way home
The cloudiness you saw after dissolving CuSO4 is not "impurities" - at least not all of it. Copper sulfate is known to partially hydrolyze into insoluble Cu(OH)2 in water. To prevent it add a little bit of sulfuric acid. If don't have it, HCl will suffice, too.
Fascinating...like watching a micro reef grow....it spun me out that the crystal mass kind of looked like a foetus!
Iwhat would you get when growing these in a 200 gallon tank over two years or more, cathode centralized in the tank, anode around the perimeter, growing up from the bottom.🤔
Really cool and fascinating, Thank you. There is another channel where he makes pure silver crystals, he uses a stainless steel bowl.
Could have just re-bent the hook🤔 and the reason for making these? What do you do with them?
Like the good old days at the company Platinum facility in South Africa. We mined nickel in the Transvaal and sent it to Norway. The Norwegians refined it like your copper precess. They kept the nickel as payment for their electrcity and sent the sludge from the tanks back to us. We used fluorine chemistry to extract the Platinum group metgals from that sludge.
So this is how popcorn chicken is made
copper bud.
Only the awesome popcorn chicken, oh yeah
you should see his mac and cheese
3 am and watch someone make tumors for fun
This is how they make chicken nuggets
fvcker gonna fvck 220 am for me....
fvcker gonna fvck copper buds
fvcker gonna fvck it's 3 am buddy
Kyle, they aren't sticky, though. ;)
Congratulation on the new born and thank you for the great video.
I say the much darker ones as you go down the growth are rather beautiful and add a more interesting feel towards them, so in my opinion I'd keep the much more beautiful form of darker crystals since it does add to the unique side of it ^-^ amazing video!
I 100% agree
This would be a a great time lapse
what other elements can you do with this aluminum? lead? bismuth? [not melting]
You can't do this with aluminum as it is too reactive. You can however with lead and bismuth. My next crystal growing video was going to be on manganese but I burnt out my platinized anode trying to do so. I've got another element I am working on now and should hopefully be out before too long
awesome! :]
you can do that with aluminium, but this requires ionic liquids, air and water free techniques and a still experimental method from basf ou phillips, i don't remember which.
Growing bismuth crystals with electrolysis is much too complicated. Just melt the stuff and pick out the crystals while the bismuth cools down. For larger bismuth crystals, you can use basically the same method used to grow silicium crystals. Takes some minutes and you get a big crystal.
You can also do it with tin. I actually believe that tin crystals are the best. The problem is they are very fragile so you have to be extremely careful with them.
try using different concentrations of sulphiric acid. You'll see much more clear crystals, or shape change due to growth speed (only applying to clusters)
"As you can hear, we have a newborn to attend to as well."
* Continues to pick crystals *
LOOOOOL A mad scientist and his long-suffering wife
"Ah don't worry the wife will get to it... Eventually... Or it will just shut itself up, we'll see..... Ok now these crystals" 🤷😂😂😂
Mans got his priorities straight.
Ahh crystal pickin. Best pickin this side of nose pickin.
As awesome as this is, I don't know what you'd do with the crystals after you grow them. They're too brittle for jewelry, unless you set them in resin, so I'm a little confused.lol
Cody Koeller I'm confused too! There has to be something
How the crystals are gown will have much to do with how brittle they are. The ones I grow, in the course of doing other things, are very tough. I put them on my big belt sander and they take a while to grind down.
I use around a half volt and distilled water, rather than tap water.
@@kellyvcraig nice! Ok, and then what do you do with them? 🤔
@@michaelz6870 I make wood turnings from blanks I made. The blanks are two pieces of wood, such as walnut or mahogany, sandwiching a piece of clear but colored plastic about 1/4" thick. When turned and polished, I add turnings I copper plated to the ends and, sometimes, the top.
Some of the turnings have these crystals growing on them "somewhat" framing a part of the turning I did not plate. When done, the combined effects make nice looking, unique ornaments.
I suppose I should go post a few someplace like Flicker so I can direct folks to them. Meanwhile, the closest I can get to that is on the Instructables web pages. You can either do a under a search my name or use the following link:
www.instructables.com/id/Making-Light-Catching-Laminated-Wood-Plastic-and-C/
You can see a few more examples of how I'm using them [but again, the post is missing the "crystal version version] at the LumberJocks web site at: www.lumberjocks.com/projects/399169
@@kellyvcraig Nice, I'll check them out--thanks for taking the time to reply and provide the links
sir what is big bar other connector. @ copper bar or? and what is spar only water or?
Thank you, I may try this with my stepdaughter. Looks like something we could have lost of fun doing.
Is it done
@@jasonolascuaga4734 never got to do this one, but I got her a colored Crystal kit and we also made some crystals on a copper plate and a good size 12v battery
Really beautiful. I wonder if you were to limit the current instead of the voltage on your power supply, if you'd get thicker individual crystals (instead of the tree branch, fractal-like pattern).
Work for a automotive front grill plating company and we would have giant nickel and copper crystal in the tank laying everywhere when tank was cleaned out.i didnt know it was crystalized back then.
im gonna go ahead and say maybe should put the crystals in resin so they don't oxidize and turn green? unless im wrong here
Kbtre B forms or resin might lower worth I think.
WOW! Filtering made a huge difference!
You can add surfactants to prevent the crystals from branching out. The pointiest regions gets deposited first which is why you need to add surfactants to cap those regions.
this is very cool, they would look incredible set in resin to keep them safe
I would guess that the Cu in the large crystals is quite pure.
Just out of curiosity what do you do with them once you grow them?
eat them
I wonder too
Smoke them
Have you tried heat treating the crystals BEFORE removing from its base? This should nearly eliminate the brittle problem.
Drinking game: every time one phrase “go ahead” is used... take a drink.
if you make it do displacement with AgNO3.....
or grow silver crystal directly on cathode with copper crystal on it....it must be the best
This is complicated but the end result is awesome. Thank you for sharing.
Have you ever tried putting ~walls (or anything) in the solution to direct the growth a bit ?
Are u a science teacher? I think it’s cool. Glad my son majored in neutrons and chemistry he should be able to do this I think lol Hey I’m just here to pay the bills lol
Spend ONE day exploring alantutorials, and suddenly TH-cam thinks I got a hard-on for educational videos.
I watched ONE VIDEO about making goulash nearly two months ago. There is still goulash in my feed.
@@PorgsLookTasty I'm gonna guess you wanted to learn something when you watched how to make goulash, yes? #alantutorials is a a web series that teaches... nothing. His earliest videos are tutorials like getting a piece of paper wet. As time went on, his uploads got stranger, and eventually it becomes apparent that this was someone's art project, a video series with a beginning, middle, end. When I heard of this, I had to see it, and now YT thinks I wanna learn all the stuff.
If you look up the videos, be warned: some people thought it was real. It's NOT real. Alan is an actor.
this took me 8 months, largest crystal facet was 4mm, add vinegar to sprout super dendritic crystals, add a tiny bit of HCl to penetrate to the base of the branches, at lower current density. too much HCl stuffs it up
to high current density and it bubbles, below the bubble threshold toy get amorphous deposits, drop the current density even more and you get the crystal facets
What concentrations of vinegar and HCl are we talking about? And what does the HCl do?
4mm crystal facet is just about what im after (so not "amorphous" like in the video), so actual data would be appreciated.
Would reverse voltages help to clean it up? Maybe 1% duty cylcle?
about half to 1/4 by volume of vinegar, causes copious dendrites, harvest and recycle dendrites, but without a half coke top HCl /3litre of CuSO4/Cu-acetate(from memory, but sneak up on that concentration.. too much will stuff it up)there is no penetration ... photos available on my google plus page.ie the chloride holds on to its copper right to the very last or something like that, acetate will drop its copper as soon as it can, hence the dendrites
one other thing, it takes less than 30 seconds for salty wet copper to oxidise, so be quick, have a bath of DI water ready, and hit it with metho asap, as it is a powerful dehydrant , tissue/hot air dry, do not handle with greasy fingers,
Was wondering if this has ever come across your mind to send one of your crystals to a wood spinner so that u can incase it in epoxy and shape it in to sphere would be cool if possible
I have excess copper solution from purifying metals and jewelry. I will try this and see if it grows copper without adding crystals. It usually starts with silver that i cement out on copper. Reactivity series silver and copper trade places. I hope it works.
Hello sir! Thank you for the fantastic video!. I am curious, if you have a bar of brass or bronze, could you separate out the copper from the brass or bronze using this method? Leaving the other alloy as a sludge?
I think it would be possible not sure tho
The tin/zinc from the alloy would likely dissolve in the sulphate environment unless you used a potentiostat 3 electrode cell arrangement to control the dissolution conditions
The process reminds me of electroplating. I have heard of something called electroforming, can you show that?
Thanks for sharing! What is the spray you use to clean the crystals off, is it just water?
Would the crystals have grown bigger, faster if you had less wire base for them to form on?
that dust is the 'anode mud' that is created as the copper is stripped out of the impure bar. all it is are the impurities from the anode that are left behind during this process. (i have been doing a LOT of research into this kind of process.)
Looks sort of like a coral. Can you put a varnish on them so they stay bright?
Would copper crystals be able to be deposited on steel if it were used as a cathode instead?
15:23 looks like a mini coral reef, color and all.
If you set your power supply to constant current you might get a much more even growing of the crystals.
Not that it really matters for an experiment like this, but just in case no one's already mentioned it, the anode is always negative and the cathode is positive. You can remember because ca(+)hode has a plus sign in the middle of it.
It is defined by the direction of current, not the polarity of the voltage. This makes things complicated when you get to things like batteries where which electrode is the cathode and which is the anode depends on whether you are charging or discharging. An anode is the electrode in which conventional current enters the cell. Alternatively, you can define it as the electrode in which electrons leave the cell. Conventional current flows from the positive voltage to the negative, so the anode is actually connected to the positive lead and puddin is correct. In a battery cell that is discharging, the anode is the negative plate of the battery, so that is probably why you are confused about this. An electrochemical cell is different from a battery, but is closer to a charging battery cell in function than it is to a discharging battery cell.
Can I assume that the copper crystals are 100% pure copper.. or at the very least 99% copper.... and any of the non conductive stuff that was in the bar just falls to the bottom? or will it transfer any conductive metals too, like leads, tin, etc. ... this was pretty neat... What does the copper sulfate actually do, just allow the water to be conductive...for the electrolysis process? Have you ever seen how they purify to 99.99% after they smelt scrap copper into bars of large (tones at a time) in the smelters, and I think they use extremely high amperage, but the copper lay on the plates evenly, not in crystal form... that is what I want to do. but, I am not smart enough to figure it out.. what is your guess, or is it too dangerous to do?
Instead of using a Dremmel on the dark ones, try painting it with a little acid flux paste, let it sit for 30-60 secs (more if needed), and then wash it off. I use this technique to polish up the exposed 10 gauge wires inside my box mods. I strip the insulation and use thick solid core to give a steampunk look (like copper tubing) to the box. Over time, they darken and dull, but the flux brightens them right up.
It would be interesting to see what would be the effect on the crystal growth if one uses an AC current where frequency and amplitude is not symmetrical to 0 point. This could also be combined with different anodes activated at different dimes to add different metals to the crystal.
Dacian Herbei Are you trying to say it has a DC bias offset?
To use different metals you need different solutions. You make the solution by starting with two masses of the same metal in an electrolyte (baking soda and water) and then switching the anode to the receiving object once the electrolyte is saturated ( blue for copper). You can do this with almost every metal.
When using some metals the voltage controls the color(oxidation states) so you can literally paint the surface with colored metals.
However, the donor metal must be anode and the receiving object cathode.
richard vaughn yes this is what I meant. But also it would be interesting to have an AC current with really low frequency to create like a wave pattern like the waves of a sea.
Dacian Herbei Doesnt work that way. The crystals form the same way regardless of the current. Maybe you should attach the anode to a slow moving arm that swings back and forth once each day. So that the thickness of deposits would cause a waviness. (thickest deposits will be at the lowest resistance path...the shortest distance between the 2 electrodes)
Mmmmm popcorn chicken lol. That was really cool. How do u get other colours?
So if I make a big chamber and put the cathod in the center and the anidod around the outside, would that work really well?
Wow, It is beautiful and almost alive/organic. Thanks for sharing.
What can you do with the crystals?
What is the solution you sprayed onto the crystals as you took them out of the cup?
This is an awesome video. Thank you for sharing.
Just water
Are the crystals purely ascetic, or do they have a practical application
That was my first thought. What are they used for? What is the purpose?
@@isawondfl1I'm not an expert by any means but I believe the point is they are extremely pure. No amount of smelting and fluxing could get it to that point. A good example is the anode he used was cast copper but most of that sludge that came off wasn't even copper
Sulfuric acid will clean away dark areas without dissolving the copper, and you get better results by adding sulfuric acid to the water. The best water is distilled or deionized as the minerals is a problem. I notice the many crystals, but what about a single crystal of copper? The process here is the same as what is used to purify copper, and instead of reducing the voltage to reduce the current it works better with that supply to set the constant current to your desired maximum current and then set the voltage to where you want it and that depends on the conductivity of the solution. This can easily be found in most electroplating and electroforming books, and I suggest staying with the copper sulfate and sulfuric acid solution, as cyanide is too dangerous to be doing at home, light smell of almonds and you could be dead sort of thing. Also using acetic acid does not give as good of results, and I recommend buying the sulfuric acid as battery acid as it is slightly diluted and safer to handle than concentrated. Always pour acid into water NEVER water into acid.
Thanks. Then what are these crystals for? Any special purpose?
You prett much answered my questions, but isn't the cathode positive?
Cathode has a t like a plus sign
Anode is anti or negative
Can you use this technique to purify the copper and if so how pure can you will it get ?
That's actually how they purify it industrially. Theoretical 99.99%
Bull Shyte I had mine tested it maxed out the meter at 99.99%
As pure as it gets. Impurities are still there because of unlucky impurities getting atomically trapped inside by pure chance. If you keep the anode and cathode in separate containers with a tube between them, so that the impurities falling off the donor metal don't pollute, the purity increases, but then you have basically hit the limit with how pure you can get it. Electrochemical processing is the way one purifies metals as much as possible.
Soak the crystals in clear resin to stabilize, then make jewelry. Would definitely sell.
@@Aaron-qr3tg down boy! Chill. People would actually eat it up and buy it. While I prefer it in it's natural state. I am sure most would buy it
Have you ever tried a larger container and chain linked anodes on 2 to 3 sides?
How about an aux jack cord as a starting point? Cut it two inches from the jack, strip the casing off and fan the wires out. Then just clamp it to the power. Depending on the size wire inside you could have lots of starting points.
I just wanted to add that this process started with crystals, put into solution & then it was 2 months electroplating. He simply transferred the copper from a ingot to a wire 1 ion at a time(hence it's tensile strength.)
Copper crystals are actually blue - bluish green
To anyone asking what to do with said crystals I ask you to explore chemistry some! I personally hobby in pyrotechnics with the crystals i synthesis! I'll purify the crystals, re-dissolve into solution & impregnate into campfire logs to make campfires that burn 100% blue-green!
I know that some other metals when plated are brittle because of hydrogen embrittlement, so when making thick layers annealing is helpful.. so I wonder if that has anything to do with the copper being brittle
Interesting video, good job 👍 thinking of giving it a go. Does the bowl need to be glass or would plastic be ok? How many times can the copper sulfate solution be used before it needs to be changed? I would imagine it just needs changed when the crystals stop growing /meaning there isn't any copper left in the solution?
Plastic works just as well but I find that the copper dust stains the plastic. The solution can keep being used near indefinitely as long as you properly filter and recrystallize every so often. It is also pretty dependent on how pure the copper anode you are using. You don't really run the solution out of copper as you are depositing it back in with the anode being dissolved. The big killer of the solution is the other metals besides copper being dissolved but as I mentioned as long as you filter and recrystallize you should be good to keep using it.
Thanks for your reply. Recrystallize do you mean add more copper sulfate?
You allow the used copper sulfate to dry out until about 95% of the water is gone. Then you pour off the remaining liquid (this will contain most of the impurities). Your bulk of crystals should then be mostly pure copper sulfate again. You can later on down the line process down the 5% you pour off each time in a separate batch to get the rest of your copper sulfate.
NurdRage did an awesome video on this that will most certainly help:
th-cam.com/video/uVA0rK_VITY/w-d-xo.html
Thanks again for your info and I'll have a look. Cheers 👍
what would happen if i used a neon sign transformer as a power source? think its something like 15,000v and 30mA
9:44 Looks like a weird thin Pretzel
What would happen if you used a flat panel of copper to make the crystals on
Interesting video, but what are you supposed to do with the crystals once you have them?
This was very interesting to watch. Thanks for sharing 🙂
I have a huge question that never seems to be answered...
Are the fumes from the copper sulfate toxic?
I have a similar set up in my garage, but I'm very leary about having my kids around the area, and i usually have a fume respirator on.
Copper sulfate shouldn't put off any fumes at all. If it does then you may want to reconsider how you source the copper sulfate.
@@Puddin no hydrogen gas fumes either? just curious
Thanks for the video, I'm not understanding what makes the current flow come from the + to deposit the crystals on the - when DC current is from the - to the +. if you use an air
defuser like that of a small fish tank to agitate your solution with an increase in amps up to 1 amp would it not deposit more a lot sooner? Thanks again.
Nice. What would happen if you used a constant current driver - would it give better results or would the growth just grind to a halt because of the increasing surface area?
Those power supplies can go from constant voltage or constant current. In my experience with growing silver crystal, constant current results in long, thin needle like spikes. Looks like superman's fortress of solitude
I wonder if you can use copper acetate for this instead of copper sulphate.
What would happen if you crank up the current the last day or so? Would it coat the crystals with a stronger layer of fine copper?
what is the purpose? What can you use them for? Is there a market for them?
your description of anode and cathode takes things off course. Anode is where conventional current (imagine positive current carriers not electrons) flow into a device. Cathode they flow out.
This is not a matter of dealing with tubes or other electronics. In plating processes, the anode is the plate, wire, beads, pipe or what have you connected to the positive side of the supply and from which the current flows. The electrons drawn by the cathode tied to the negative DC lead.
what would happen if you were to run an electrical current through the crystals by themselves in the solution?
This is a great project to do with a kid. Make something cool while teaching them the science behind it.
how much copper can i desolve using your coil method ? i finally made crystal using car battry acid and your coil method but. will it be better to concentrate barrty acid first? if i keep conecting fresh copper will it desolve forever or will the acid burn off eventually?
That's great. What is the point of these??
I wonder how they perform as antennas. Wide bandwidth? Can you grow them while say, supplying a physical vibration frequency to the cathode as it grows? Also, you may get better results if you allow gravity to help you, e.g. placing the anode at the bottom of the container, whilst the cathode remains saturated at the top. I used to have some very old crystal chemistry growing books and was fascinated to learn that the trick to growing crystals is to find out what "feeding" system works best, while resonance and temperature, all the way down to which direction your "feeding" solvent rotated, (clockwise or counter clockwise), to the frequency of the light, to the shape and orientation of the electrodes. It is indeed not only a science but an art. Thank you for the education.
do thay make gold sulfate. and if you had a big anode of gold could you grow gold crystals?