Clathrate Hydrate Structure II Puzzle

Clathrate hydrate is a solid solution made of gas and water. Methane hydrate is the most famous clathrate hydrate, but many other gases also form the clathrate hydrate.

Its crystal structure is quite complicated. In clathrate hydrates, the gas molecules are contained in the cages made of water molecules. There are three major type of cages, 12-, 14- and 16-hedra. Methane hydrate consists of 12- and 14-hedra, whereas hydrogen hydrate is composed of 12- and 16-hedra.

The unit cell of the methane hydrate consists of 46 water molecules and 8 methane molecules. They are extraordinarily large numbers; Unit cells of the face-centered cubic and body-centered cubic lattice only consists of 4 and 2 atoms, respectively. The unit cell of hydrogen hydrate consists of 136 water molecules and 24 hydrogen molecules, and there are eight 16-hedral cages and sixteen 12-hedral cages in a single unit cell.

It is therefore very difficult to imagine the structure of these hydrates. So, I made this puzzle. This puzzle mimics the unit cell structure of the hydrogen hydrate. In the photograph, blue and white parts corresponds to 16-hedral and 12-hedral cages. Hydrogen molecules reside at the centers of these cages.

The inner dimension of the cubic acrylic box is 62.5 mm. "x4" in the STL filename indicates the number of the part required make a unit cell. The THING file includes all the required copies of the parts.

Enjoy!