Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I was trying to do crystalised by using aluminium tin, but i failed to melt it.
Is there anything i could add into it or do to make it easier to melt? Or it's impossible to melt aluminium tin in lab?

Thanks for helping!

Hi Sherry,
I'm not sure what you mean by " do crystalised ", maybe make crystals?
Anyway the melting point for aluminum is around 1200F, pretty hot,
your stove/burner probably will not get that hot.

What exactly are you trying to do?

Jim

Jim, thank you for your reply...

i was trying to make the aluminium turn into crystal.
my teks book got an experiment is turn magnesium oxide into crystal.
but i'm not sure the aluminium tin is aluminium oxide or something else.
there's one group done it before but i couldn't find them and none of my teacher remember of their project, so i was thinking maybe i could get any precious information here. one of my teacher suggest me to cut the aluminium into very small pieces and add 5 mol acid hydrochloric to boil it at 100'C. will that work?

Thanks

Hi Sherry,
'Crystal' can mean a lot of things. Usually, in reference to minerals, it means that there is some consistent internal structure among the atoms, and that they aren't randomly arranged as they are in a liquid, glass, or a bucket full of sand. I think you are referring to are the large, spectacular looking crystals that one might buy at a rock shop.

Aluminum can react with HCL, but from what I've read it tends to make a lot of fumes and a dark, mucky mess. Is it possible that they used 'alum' and not 'aluminum'?
http://www.beloit.edu/~SEPM/Rocks_and_m ... stals.html
http://www.ehow.com/how_3865_grow-alum-crystals.html

Hi,
I think perhaps the previous experiment was using Alum, not Aluminum!
If you figure out how to grow large single crystal aluminum, you'll be the expert!

Here is a link with a procedure.

http://rockhoundingar.com/pebblepups/growcryst.html

Most of the methods I recall will disolve a material in a liquid until it reaches saturation, meaning you cannot disolve any more into the liquid. Then you use a "seed", meaning a piece of the crystal material to get the process started.

An interesting modification you could investigate during this process would be to "super saturate" the liquid. You can cause a super saturated liquid to solidify almost instantly, it would not have a nice crystal structure but it is a very interesting process. I'm not sure if it would work with Alum, but you can find out.

Pretty cool.

Hope this helps.

By the way, you can get alum at the grocery store.

Jim

Thanks for the information, i'll try some experiment on tuesday.

Today i run the experiment by using pieces that i cut from aluminium tin and 5 mol HCL, then heat it up to 105'C.
then i keep on stir it until it turn from silvery black to light grey.
i leave it untouch for several hour and i saw something crystal like at the bottom. I think my experiment finally work now. but i still need to wait for a few days before i can confirm the "thing" inside is a crystal.

anyway, thanks for helping me. i'll be back here if i still face any problem. but hopefully my experiment did work.

thanks alot!

Hi Sherry,
This is a very bad idea, inhaling the vapors produced by boiling this acid is dangerous.

I really don't think you should be heating up hydrocloric acid on the stovetop.
I not so sure you will disolve the aluminum and if you do there is no reason it would form into a crystal given your procedure.

You should pick up some Alum from the grocery store, or even make a sugar syrup.

Don't try your experiment as you have outlined!!!

Jim

Thank you jim, but miracle happen on my experiment. I get some tiny crystal in my experiment, and i done it safely together with my chemistry teacher. please don't get worry of me because i'm moving on to do the paper work only. Thank you so much for the advised. i'll keep it in mind.

I'm glad it worked for you, though I wouldn't use the word "miracle" if I were you. There are no miracles in science.

Glad to help.