Chemical Flowers Created in a Glass Beaker - Phillip Voice

What do you think of these rather peculiar flowers?
These colourful flower-like sculptures aren't made by mother nature but by chemists in a lab. They are just microns across. By manipulating chemical gradients in a beaker of fluid, Wim Noorduin, from the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, found that he can control the growth behaviour of these crystals to create precisely tailored structures. 

"For at least 200 years, people have been intrigued by how complex shapes could have evolved in nature. This work helps to demonstrate what’s possible just through environmental, chemical changes," says Noorduin.

The precipitation of the crystals depends on a reaction of compounds that are diffusing through a liquid solution. The crystals grow toward or away from certain chemical gradients as the pH of the reaction shifts back and forth. The conditions of the reaction dictate whether the structure resembles broad, radiating leaves, a thin stem, or a rosette of petals.

After starting my garden maintenance and landscaping business in 1984 and running it for 21 years I decided I needed a change of direction (probably a mid life crisis, no seriously! :-0) Together with my family, wife Donna, Son Henry and Daughter Fleur (not forgetting Hector the Black Labrador) I moved to France in search of an old farmhouse to renovate. In the interim period whilst waiting for the contract to go through I started writing a blog. Initially just to keep a diary for family and friends to keep up with our progress if they wished but then it occurred to me that there isn't a real time watcher of the landscape industry in the UK. I didn't want to waste my experience and experiences so I decided I could put all of this Juice to good use so I started Landscape Juice.

Source: Landscape Juice - Chemical Flowers Created in a Glass Beaker - Phillip Voice

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