Weird behaviour of Sodium Citrate

Images made through a microscope. All subject types.

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pwnell
Posts: 2029
Joined: Fri Dec 18, 2009 4:59 pm
Location: Tsawwassen, Canada

Weird behaviour of Sodium Citrate

Post by pwnell »

I was trying to get nice photos of Sodium Citrate when I encountered these patterns. I placed a drop of solution on the slide and waited for it to evaporate. To help speed along the process, I placed it under my metal halide lights (quite hot). When I placed it under the microscope I saw the smooth drop change shape into these wrinkled, wavy lines. It stayed like this for about 5 minutes before fading away into a plain uniform shape.

My guess is that this has to do with the heating and cooling of the solution. Either way, under DIC it looked incredible:

Sodium Citrate, 10x, DIC
Image
20120830-DSLR_IMG_0044.jpg by pwnell, on Flickr

Sodium Citrate, 10x * 2, DIC
Image
20120830-DSLR_IMG_0037.jpg by pwnell, on Flickr

iwamori
Posts: 29
Joined: Sun Oct 07, 2012 12:44 pm

Post by iwamori »

Very beautiful images, a terrific surprise.

arturoag75
Posts: 1600
Joined: Fri Feb 05, 2010 1:05 am
Location: italy
Contact:

Post by arturoag75 »

Stunning :shock:

g4lab
Posts: 1437
Joined: Fri May 23, 2008 11:07 am

Post by g4lab »

Reminds me of wrinkle paint finishes that they used to do once upon a time.

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