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Spiral Crystal Growth of Potassium Dichromate in Gelatin

1995; Physical Society of Japan; Volume: 64; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1143/jpsj.64.348

1347-4073

Jun-ichiro Suda, Mitsugu Matsushita,

Enzyme Structure and Function

Huge spiral crystals of potassium dichromate (K 2 Cr 2 O 7 ) have been found to grow three-dimensionally in a gelatin medium when gelatin containing K 2 Cr 2 O 7 was dried slowly in a test tube at a low temperature. These spirals were all right-handed, and their widths, axial pitches and lengths were 2–3 mm, 5–6 mm and 20–25 mm, respectively. When the gelatin concentration in the medium was decreased, ordinary platelike crystals were observed to grow, instead of the spiral crystals. To the best of our knowledge, inorganic compounds such as K 2 Cr 2 O 7 have so far not been reported to form such huge spiral crystals. It is conjectured that collagen molecules, which compose the gelatin medium and have right-handed triple helix structure lead to the growth of spiral crystals.