Mother Nature take eon to craft the beautiful crystals and geodes we often see in museums , but if you are concerned in imitating her there ’s a way that is both quicker and meretricious . you may make beautiful crystal and even geode now in your kitchen , with a bit of warmth and a various little metallic element . Welcome to the world of atomic number 83 crystals .
Bismuth is a of course occurring metal with some remarkable property . It ’s the most naturally diamagnetic element : let out it to a magnetic theatre and it will create an interior induced magnetised field that produces a repelling violence .
It also has one of the lowest caloric conductivities of any metal , a spoiled heat energy director in its class . It has a melting point of 271.5 ° C ( 520.7 ° F ) , modest enough to be achieve in a kitchen .
The metallic element has been known since antiquity and , after the breakthrough of radiation , it was considered the heaviest non - radioactive constituent known . But in 2003 , it was discovered it wasvery weakly radioactive . Its half - life history is over a billion times long than the age of the Universe or 19 billion billion years .
So unless you plan to live evermore , any covering of bismuth is extremely safe and static . So dependable that we can undertake most of us will have drunk it before .
Do n’t worry , people have not wassail it as a molten metal ( we do not recommend that – because you ’ll expire ) . People drink it as a chemical compound know as Bismuth subsalicylate , an antidiarrheal and active ingredient in preparations such asPepto - Bismoland Kaopectate , which are used to deal pyrosis , indigestion , disordered abdomen , and sickness .
In compound , it has other aesculapian diligence as well as being used in solders and other alloys in property of lead , given their denseness are roughly the same .
And then there are its artistic lotion . Bismuth oxides are iridescent , reflecting light broken in its color spectrum . Bismuth crystals are pop to buy and make .
The crystal - making cognitive process is very square . You buy a bismuth ingot and melt it in a pot ( one that you do n’t really care for ) , wearing safety goggles and leather gloves . The deeper and narrow it is the better results you ’ll have as you wo n’t let on too much of the liquified metallic element to the aviation , which will oxidate it and render it useless . The air will be crucial only in the last step .
Once your Bi is completely liquid , turn the passion off . Then you will have to play a hold back biz . The Earth’s surface of your liquid state will begin to solidify , in with child chunks . Underneath those chunks a quartz is forming , when you feel like it ’s sentence , pick one up with some tweezers and you will see the silvery open become colorful as a fragile layer of oxidation chassis .
you may even use molds if you want to do something more originative , from funny colorful shapes to create bismuth geodes .
