Colloidal gardens from sodium metasilicate.

Abstract

A familiar experiment in colloid chemistry is the formation of insoluble silicate growths, brought about by dropping crystals of various metal chlorides into diluted water glass. These systems are commonly called "Colloidal Gardens" because the silicates form as tubes which superficially resemble growing plants.

From Chemical Gardens to Chemobrionics

“…By the time J. D. Bernal wrote on the theme in The Origin of Life in 1967, post Watson and Crick’s work on DNA, chemical gardens were passé:“To a scientist of the last century speculating on the origin of life, the first task as he saw it, was to produce something that gave the forms of what seemed to be characteristic of primitive life; to imitate life by means of various precipitates of inorganic or organic substances; to show that even silicates could produce globular and filamentous forms which mimicked many of the features of life as did, for instance, Leduc’s algae and mushrooms”.The discovery of the genetic mechanisms of inheritance led biology away from looking for the origin of life in the inorganic world; meanwhile osmosis was now considered a well-understood process, and beyond a few prescient early papers that began to detail the physical growth processes, − chemical gardens were generally relegated to chemistry sets, to the role, so well-described by Mann, of introducing chemistry to children. (For example, see the didactic papers of Eastes and Darrigan and Eastes et al with aesthetic pictures reproducing some of the experiments of Leduc one century on; Figure .)…”

Tubular precipitation structures: materials synthesis under non-equilibrium conditions

“…The latter features are all combined in silica (chemical or crystal) gardens that belong to one of chemistry's oldest experimental systems [20][21][22][23]. In its classic form, this experiment is frequently used as a demonstration experiment and chemical toy because it forms colourful, hollow structures that grow and move in a life-like fashion [24,25] (figure 1). It is hence no surprise that this system has attracted the interest of generations of scientists and laypeople, including Isaac Newton, Johann Rudolf Glauber, Stephane Leduc, Thomas Mann and Oliver Sacks [26][27][28][29][30][31].…”

Compositional analysis of copper–silica precipitation tubes

“…13,14 This surprisingly wide spectrum of tubular structures raises the question whether the underlying processes share dynamic similarities such as common features in the driving reactiontransport processes. [28][29][30][31] Nonetheless, recent advances have contributed to a revived scientific interest in these poorly understood structures. Unfortunately, many systems do not lend themselves easily to quantitative laboratory studies as they involve inconvenient length and timescales or other complications.…”

“…Today they are known primarily as a popular demonstration experiment in young chemist sets. [28][29][30][31] Nonetheless, recent advances have contributed to a revived scientific interest in these poorly understood structures. Specifically, Collins et al showed that tubes produced from aluminosilicate gardens are hierarchical nanostructures and powerful Brønsted acid catalysts.…”