Issue Date: December 29, 2017
Chemistry in Pictures: Truly sublime
Keywords: Chemistry in Pictures, inorganic chemistry, iodine, sublimations

Mirry Criel, an undergraduate at the University Institute of Technology in Montpellier, made these iodine crystals for her inorganic chemistry course. The apparatus she used (held upside-down in this photo) consisted of a flask with a cooled glass tube hanging inside it. Criel loaded solid iodine in the flask and heated it, causing the iodine to sublime—transition from a solid directly into a gas. Once the gaseous iodine hit the cooled tube, it deposited into a solid again and formed these dark purple crystals.
Submitted by Mirry Criel
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CORRECTION: This story was updated on Feb. 8, 2018, to correct the term for the phase transition from gas to solid. The opposite of “sublimed” is “deposited,” not “condensed.”
- Chemical & Engineering News
- ISSN 0009-2347
- Copyright © American Chemical Society
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