Experiment and simulation of multifractal growth of crystalline NaCl aggregates in aqueous gelatin medium

Crystalline aggregates formed in a drying gel medium form intricate dendritic patterns. The strongly inhomogeneous growth process leads to a morphology characteristic of a geometrical multifractal. We propose a simple growth model that is able to generate aggregates that have a spectrum of multifractal dimensions very similar to the experimental samples. This makes our model a promising starting point to the understanding of drying colloidal gels.