Making Naphthalene Crystals

23 Comments

Making Naphthalene Crystals

I realized that time passes so fast, it was about a week since I made a new post. I feel like it has been for only 3 days. Anyways, let’s get started with the post.

I’ll try to make Naphthalene crystals. Naphthalene is a white crystalline solid with a characteristic odor. It’s melting point is about 80°C. If you leave it to expose air, it’ll change into a gas.

My Naphthalene:

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I put about 7 balls of Naphthalene into a 600 ml beaker, and I put a flask with cold water on top of it.

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The Naphthalene is vaporizing quickly. The vapors will get in contact with the cold water in the flask and turn back into a solid.

Crystals are also forming in the beaker, because it’s touching the cold air outside, just like what’s happening in the flask.

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All of the Naphthalene has changed into liquid, it was boiling a little too fast so I stopped the heat.

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The crystals are so fragile so I used a trash bag to make the crystals fall onto it.

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Here are the crystals. They look like fern leaves and snowflakes! But I wish the crystals were chunks, not thin like this. I looked in the internet for pictures of Naphthalene crystals, and they’re just like mine. The reason that it’s yellow is because the light is just reflecting it.

Here’s the beaker:

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I hoped you enjoyed the post, if you did, drop a like down below ↓

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Categories: Chemistry

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23 Comments »

  1. What a fun experiment! I love the delicate fern-like crystals, which you have photographed so well.
    I think moth balls are made from naphthalene? They have a very strong smell.
    And I’m trying to remember my chemistry, but I thought naphthalene sublimed? – goes straight from a solid to a gas? Maybe it depends on the pressure and temperature.

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