How to grow a copper tree in 1 hour

Growing your own tree at home is super easy!

Warn­ing! Only un­der adult su­per­vi­sion

Equip­ment

  • cop­per sul­fate so­lu­tion;
  • zinc wire;
  • cof­fee fil­ter;
  • Petri dish.

Step-by-step in­struc­tions

Place a cof­fee fil­ter in one half of a Petri dish, soak it with a so­lu­tion of cop­per sul­fate, and set a bent zinc wire on it. Press the wire down slight­ly and cov­er it with the sec­ond half of the Petri dish. An hour lat­er, bizarre branch­es be­gin to grow from the wire!

Sci­en­tif­ic de­scrip­tion

Cop­per sul­fate re­acts with zinc to form cop­per atoms, which caus­es the area sur­round­ing the zinc wire to be­come col­or­less. Then, the cop­per atoms bond with each oth­er to form cop­per den­drites, which are strong­ly rem­i­nis­cent of tree branch­es!

A sim­i­lar ex­per­i­ment is in­clud­ed in the “Alche­my” set from the MEL Sci­ence sub­scrip­tion!

Try it