Envisioning Chemistry: Chemical Garden II

Six metal salts grow into strange, lifelike forms inside sodium silicate solution, captured in close-up as osmotic pressure builds and bursts their membranes.

Chemistry looks like alien life in these mesmerizing close-ups of growing crystal gardens.

When a piece of metal salt is dropped in the solution of sodium silicate, a membrane of insoluble metal silicate is formed. Due to the osmotic pressure, water enters the membrane and breaks it, generating more insoluble

Plays in Vimeo's player · Watch on Vimeo