Food colouring crystals (New music video added)

Linden.g · Post by **Linden.g** » Fri Dec 28, 2012 6:56 pm

Food colouring crystal formed from water imaged in DIC

pwnell · Post by **pwnell** » Fri Dec 28, 2012 9:25 pm

These are incredibly good. Care to elaborate a little more on the preparation? Sounds very interesting.

Linden.g · Post by **Linden.g** » Fri Dec 28, 2012 10:07 pm

The prep was very simple, the food colouring was placed under the cover slip and allowed to dry at room temp, crystals formed from the coverslip edges. Each colour appears to produce different crystal forms. Optics, BH-2, 40x S-plan achromat, 2.5x tube lens, DIC flash, single exposure no stacking.
Linden

pwnell · Post by **pwnell** » Fri Dec 28, 2012 11:03 pm

Thanks for the info.

Jacek · Post by **Jacek** » Sat Dec 29, 2012 1:32 am

last beautiful

descall · Post by **descall** » Sat Dec 29, 2012 4:35 am

Very, very nice indeed

TheLostVertex · Post by **TheLostVertex** » Sat Dec 29, 2012 6:58 am

Are these crystals ever present in the food coloring solution, or do they take some time to form? You said they formed at the cover slip edge, implying that the liquid form a much different.

They appear to be quite a bit more 'spiky' than I would expect. Perhaps their shape plays a role in their ability to stick to and color things? I would be interested if this was the case, or if the crystals were a solely a byproduct of the circumstances.

Ecki · Post by **Ecki** » Sat Dec 29, 2012 7:19 am

Amazing!

Linden.g · Post by **Linden.g** » Sat Dec 29, 2012 8:59 am

TheLostVertex wrote:Are these crystals ever present in the food coloring solution, or do they take some time to form? You said they formed at the cover slip edge, implying that the liquid form a much different.

They appear to be quite a bit more 'spiky' than I would expect. Perhaps their shape plays a role in their ability to stick to and color things? I would be interested if this was the case, or if the crystals were a solely a byproduct of the circumstances.

Steve, the crystals grow from the edges of the cover slip inwards due to evaporation causing the solids to come out of solution in crystal form. No crystals are present in the starting mixture.

Thanks for the kind comment everyone. At this point I can not be sure that its the dyes which are causing the crystals as the product also contains propylparaben and propylene glycol. The dyes are the usual suspects, FD&C, blue 1, Red 3 etc. I need to do some more experiments to figure this out.

Linden

Linden.g · Post by **Linden.g** » Sat Dec 29, 2012 9:24 am

Here are some more examples

Linden

arturoag75 · Post by **arturoag75** » Sat Dec 29, 2012 12:15 pm

excellent

TheLostVertex · Post by **TheLostVertex** » Sat Dec 29, 2012 4:25 pm

Thanks for the additional information

Linden.g · Post by **Linden.g** » Sat Dec 29, 2012 4:36 pm

I went back to the package labelling and the yellow dye is FD&C Yellow 5 and the red dye is FD&C Red 40. The crystal morphologies appear to be very variable.

Linden.g · Post by **Linden.g** » Sun Dec 30, 2012 8:32 am

The red colouring appears to produce stars and flat pointed sheets. The yellow colouring can make very long thin filaments as seen in the last image.

Fredlab · Post by **Fredlab** » Sun Dec 30, 2012 8:42 am

Hello

Really amazing
Love all the shots.

Food colouring crystals (New music video added)

Food colouring crystals (New music video added)

Food colouring crytsal (new examples added)