Water absorbing polymer or expanding water crystal (or “watersorb”) is a very interesting product. This polymer (polyacrlyamide) is capable of absorbing water up to 400 times its weight. A tiny spherical granule of this polymer, about 2 millimeter in diameter can absorb water and expand more than 10 times its original size!

This super absorbent polymer finds lots of practical applications in horticulture, watering indoor plants, evaporative cooling, cool pads, absorbent pads, absorbent rolls, soil erosion control and so on. Its main application is for soil moisturizing and controlled watering of plants. When these water absorbing crystals are mixed with the soil of the plant and watered, the crystals absorb water, as we said earlier, up to 400 times their own weight. Now, as the plants utilize the water and nutrients from the soil and the soil gets dried up, the water in these crystals get gradually released to the soil. Thus the moisture of the soil is maintained to facilitate the plants to keep on absorbing water and nutrients for a long time, without the need for frequent watering.

These water absorbing crystals / polymer can also find use in creative decorations. Recently a friend presented us with a small packet containing the hard, colored granules of this polymer. They were all spherical, about 2 mm in diameter and were in different colors – red, yellow, green, pink and so on.

We soaked about 2 teaspoonful of these crystals in a bowl of water over night. And presto! What an amazing and beautiful transformation took place overnight! What we saw in the morning was a bowl full of perfectly spherical, transparent and colorful jelly-like and glass-marble-like balls, all about 12 to 15 millimeter (about half an inch) in diameter!

The sight turned every one playful and childish! The balls were very smooth, soft to touch, cool to feel and seemingly dry, though slippery!

My daughter’s creative eyes did not miss the opportunity to take some creative photo shots of the new-found, visually pleasing “marbles”. She missed no time to take out her newly acquired Canon Ixus-970-IS camera and try some close shots and tight close-up shots with a generous usage of natural sun light.

At night, it was time for her to try some external torch lights and take pictures combining the beautiful and decorative crystals in the dark, in association with certain translucent plastic items found inside the house. Splitting these water absorbed polymers into halves and quarters, she tried a few assortments of designs and photographed them.

Here I am giving the collection of some of her photographs taken in daylight and night.