Vienna, Austria A three-dimensional model magnifying a grain of salt by a billion times went on show in Vienna on Monday, aiming to make it into the Guinness Book of Records.

Made of 38,880 red and white plastic balls representing atoms of sodium and chloride and 10 kilometres (six miles) of sticks, it aims to be the world's biggest model of a crystal molecule.

"Crystals are very important to our daily lives," said Austrian scientist Robert Krickl, who painstakingly put together the three-metre-(nine-foot)-high model in Vienna's neo-gothic City Hall.

"Crystals are not only glittering stones and gem stones... We can't phone without them, we can't watch TV without them, we can't have clocks without them, we can't live without them," he said.