From the creators of yo-yo crystals comes the brand-new sequel - hollow crystals. When a team of scientific investigators detected an enigmatic structure never before seen in a lab, they knew they could be on to something big. But first they had to solve the mystery of how these crystals materialized. This is a gripping story of "self-sacrifice," "cannibalism" and contradictions, culminating in the formation of unique crystals that hold promise for uses in applications such as energy storage and carbon dioxide capture.
The hollow crystals, composed of six-connected half-rods that protrude circularly around an empty core, are so unique and contradictory to nature that for over three years now Prof. Milko van der Boom of the Weizmann Institute of Science's Molecular Chemistry and Materials Science Department and his team have been trying to solve the mystery of how they came to be. "Our first reactions were: 'Wow, what in the world have we created? How did they form? Are we able to reproduce the results?'" says van der Boom.
