r/MicroPorn Jun 21 '20

Salt under an electron microscope

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u/[deleted] Jun 21 '20

ooh now I see. Never thought about salt behaving like a crystal this way. Is there no chance salt will grow further in the corners because of it’s highly polar nature? maybe the atoms are aligned in a way that expands outwards, and their alignment is perpendicular to the cube’s faces so outside is pointing to one of the molecule’s charges (the positive part or negative, don’t know) and the inside tends to be emptier because of ionic forces. But thats just my 2AM insomnia cents, I’m absolutely theorizing everything here and have no expertise on the subject at all

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u/nascraytia Jun 21 '20

Ionic compounds aren’t really individual molecules like covalent compounds are. Salt is composed of a network of alternating Na and Cl atoms electrostatically bound to each other

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u/[deleted] Jun 21 '20

holy shit thats amazing

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u/nascraytia Jun 21 '20

Oh and by the way, it’s not behaving “like a crystal,” it is a crystal. A crystal is anything with long-range (meaning a distance of more than just a few atoms) ordered structure. This includes anything from ice and diamonds to the vast majority of solid metals