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Deliquescence occurs when the vapour pressure of the solution that is formed is less than the partial pressure of water vapour in the air. While some similar forces are at work here, it is different from capillary attraction, a process where glass or other solid substances attract water, but are not changed in the process (e.g., water molecules ...
Some ways by which crystals form are precipitating from a solution, freezing, or more rarely deposition directly from a gas. Attributes of the resulting crystal depend largely on factors such as temperature, air pressure, cooling rate, and in the case of liquid crystals, time of fluid evaporation. Crystallization occurs in two major steps.
Hydrothermal synthesis can be defined as a method of synthesis of single crystals that depends on the solubility of minerals in hot water under high pressure. The crystal growth is performed in an apparatus consisting of a steel pressure vessel called an autoclave, in which a nutrient is supplied along with water. A temperature gradient is ...
The scientific study of crystals and crystal formation is known as crystallography. The process of crystal formation via mechanisms of crystal growth is called crystallization or solidification. The word crystal derives from the Ancient Greek word κρύσταλλος (krustallos), meaning both "ice" and "rock crystal", [3] from κρύος ...
When sucrose is cooled slowly it results in crystal sugar (or rock candy), but when cooled rapidly it can form syrupy cotton candy (candyfloss). Vitrification can also occur in a liquid such as water, usually through very rapid cooling or the introduction of agents that suppress the formation of ice crystals.
Chemical clues in zircon crystals suggest the rock in which they formed came into contact with fresh water 4 billion years ago, when Earth was thought to be covered in ocean.
Piezoelectric balance presented by Pierre Curie to Lord Kelvin, Hunterian Museum, Glasgow. Piezoelectricity (/ ˌ p iː z oʊ-, ˌ p iː t s oʊ-, p aɪ ˌ iː z oʊ-/, US: / p i ˌ eɪ z oʊ-, p i ˌ eɪ t s oʊ-/) [1] is the electric charge that accumulates in certain solid materials—such as crystals, certain ceramics, and biological matter such as bone, DNA, and various proteins—in ...
Crystals, though long admired for their regularity and symmetry, were not investigated scientifically until the 17th century. Johannes Kepler hypothesized in his work Strena seu de Nive Sexangula (A New Year's Gift of Hexagonal Snow) (1611) that the hexagonal symmetry of snowflake crystals was due to a regular packing of spherical water particles. [1]