Online Recipe for Waterglass

10 ml water
Add 4-8 grams of NaOH
Belle Chemical Brand  - Billings, MT

Add 6 grams of Silica    (“NATRA SORB” Brand Silica) Multisorb technologies Buffalo, NY
www.multisorb.com

Started with 10.1 +/- 0.1 grams of DI water in 5” inch stainless steel pan 4 inches deep with a poly-acrylic lid secured by a chrome plated steel lid assembly (see photo)

Dissolved 6.5 grams of Sodium Hydoxide in solution.

Added 8.1 grams of silica

Dissovled entirely into solution.

Added 12.4 ml water after all the water began boiling away
Added another 16 ml of water just to bring the level up to normal where the magnetic spinner could actually stir the solution. NOTE: Making larger batches will reduce these problems.

Stainless Steel Container Weight: 308 g

Begin with: 700 grams of filtered tap water from the frige in the break room. Poured into the same 5” stainless steel container that I used to cook inside yesterday. At 9:55 turn heat on and add: 6x70 = 420 grams of Sodium Hydroxide At 10:06 I slowly added 60.4 grams of silica And then another 78.5 grams of silica 5 minutes later Thermometer was disconnected so we had a boil over and spill at 10:15  resulting in 10-15ml of solution spilling over. Another 57.8 grams of silica was added slowly, and then another 54 grams. A final 66 grams of silica was added before the solution would not readily dissolve any more. ⅔ of the final solution was poured into a stainless steel paint can. 12:57pm The final 3rd of remaining solution is estimated to be between 200 and 250 ml. To this another 55.2 grams of Sodium Hydroxide was added to solution followed by another 40 grams of silica. 2:14pm Solution fully cooked and solidified.

Heater and mixer turned off. Lab Equipment cleaned and workstation made ready for tomorrow. 420 grams NaOH .700 ml of water 420 grams NaOH / 39.9971 grams / mole = 10.5007 700 ml or .700 liters of water 1-1 Med Conc Waterglass 15.001 moles / liter 4:00pm Prep for tomorrow 40% concentrate

Begin with 200 grams of filtered water

4 x 20 = 80 grams of NaOH

6 x 20 = 120 grams silica

Begin with 200ml filtered water from the fridge tap, carried in an empty coffee pot. Using 4-6 ratio to calculate. 10x20 = 200ml H2O 4 grams sodium hydroxide x20 = 80 grams NaOH 6 grams silica x20 = 120 grams Unfortunately we only have 92.8 grams of silica left, so 92.8 / 6 = 15.46666 61.8 grams of NaOH 154.6 ml h20 9:55am begin by mixing 61.8 grams of NaOH into cool water, and then adding a small amount of silica and begin heating and stirring in additional small amounts of silica, waiting for them to dissolve completely before adding more. Until the full 92.8 grams has been mixed into solution. Heat was started at 109 and not fully up to temp when I began adding silica. The Silica likely drops the boiling point of the solution when first added, which created an instant rush of steam which made me cough a bit more than normal steam, but did not really taste or detect anything unusual. Heat reduced to 90 at around 10:06 and then gradually brought up to 98 by 10:12 Adding much smaller amounts of silica now. ~5 grams every 2-3 minutes. 10:17 temp raised to 100 as chain formations of silica begin building up around mixing paddle For the last 30-40 minutes the water has been on a full boil at 103C Due to evaporation I have had to gradually add 16ml 13.6ml 21.3ml 22.6ml

11:03 19.6ml 20.4ml Water added from boiling off… A 2.1 gram rock of silica left undissolved… Low Concentration Solution: 10 moles / liter   (9.994256…)

Math 90.7 grams of Silica 61.8 grams of NaOH / 39.9971 grams /mole  = 1.5451 moles NaOH 154.6 ml H20 or  0.1546 liters Molarity Calculations: Na = 23.0 g/mol

OH = 16.9971  g/mol
Sodium Hydroxide :  39.9971 g/mol

Magnesium Oxide Molar Mass (Wikipedia) 40.304 g/mol

10:58 am Evaporation rate experiment Run #1 Lid OPEN Start with 262.6 grams of water in the same 5” Stainless steel container Temp set to 100C  Stirring set to 280.

Boiling Time Start Weigh again at start of boiling:   537.7  grams Weight after 30 mins:    425.1  grams Weight after 1 hour:          11:07AM water has reached 90C 11:10 steam forming Weight  537.7 (minus weight of container + weight of mixing pill) 308 grams   +    6.7 g  = 314.7 grams Switch to small mixer 308 grams +  4.2 grams = 312.2  grams 223 grams 11:40 AM   Weight  425.1 grams 110 grams of water 12:00 - All   262.6 grams of water evaporated Evaporative Boiling Rate with the container lid open: -153 ml of water every 30 minutes -306 ml per hour Run #2   Lid CLOSED to more closely simulate the conditions I was using during the production runs the first 2 days. 763 grams tap water -314.7 container = 448.3 ml tap water 1:13 - 78C and bubbling started 1:15 - 85C 1:17 - 88C  small condensation mist visible on lid 1:23 - 97C - water has reached a steady boil 1:28 - 99C - Full Boil Large condensation droplets on lid 1:35 704.2 grams - 212.2 = actual weight of water 492 1:40pm

693.1   grams 480.9    (-11.1 grams) 1:45pm683.8   grams 471.6  (-9.3 grams) 1:50pm 673.1   grams 460.9   (-10.7 grams) 1:55pm 660.6   grams 448.4    (-12.5 grams) 2:00pm 647.1  grams 434.9    (13.5 grams) Or an average of 11.42 ml every 5 minute Or 11.42 ml x12 = 137 ml / hour

For the two preparations of water glass, we want to dissolve 0.25 grams, 0.5 grams and 1 gram of sodium silicate solution in 20 ml of water each, and we want to add that to a mixture of 50 grams of talc powder plus 0.082, .165 or .33 grams of finely crushed magnesium oxide respectively to make a cement, then we ultrasonicate it to remove bubbles and pack the particles tightly together.

If you want to try making a tile grout, your best bet is to try mixing the concentrated water glass with solid particles of boric acid, with powdered silica, rust/iron oxide, antimony oxide, zinc oxide or other oxide which can have acidic character.

Other possibilities include chromium, vanadium, molybdenum and tungsten oxide, but those are more expensive or toxic depending on the situation. Boric acid may work, but it may retain more water solubility.

The low concentration water glass was used first. Three samples were made up (0.25g, 0.5g, and 1.0 grams) Approximate 2-5ml of water was added to each of the samples for increased workability. The first solution with just 20ml of water added was the 1 gram solution and it was hardly workable until water was added. The second or middle number solution seemed to have the best results. All three samples of low concentrate waterglass solution were then placed in the ultrasonicator and processed for an hour. They were then left in there for about an hour before I ran them for another 5 minutes before removing them and setting them out to air dry.

Batch #1
1.5 grams of waterglass weighed out
25 ml tap water added
50 grams of talc weighed out
0.5 grams of pestle crushed Magnesium oxide added to talc powder and mixed for 2 minutes by hand.

26.5 gram diluted waterglass solution added to mix in a washed empty yogurt container, and set to sonicate for 400+

Batch #.666

2 grams of waterglass weighed out
32ml of tap water added - this is very close to the ideal workability

50 grams talc weighed out
0.666 grams of MgO weighed out and mixed with 50g talc powder by hand for 2 minutes

Notes:

The added water content definitely improved workability and the “ooblek” like nature of the fully mixed product.

Batch # 0.75

1.5 grams of water glass
64ml filtered tap water

100 grams of talc
0.492 g Magnesium Oxide

Half was doled out into one red cup, and half into another.
And additional 2.5-3ml of filtered water was added to one as a workability test. Results:

Hardening Paste mixture

Brown Stuff - The clear liquid on top was dumped into a separate container J along with a few pipettes of the liquid on top removed by eye dropper. A few sediments were noticeably picked up during this process, which sunk to the bottom. So this process was refined for the separation of the white stuff, by using a 3rd container for the middle layer.. In case there turned out to be any use for this.

White Stuff Separated into 3 parts:
X - clear liquid from top
B - Cloudy liquid leftovers
A - Solid products leftover

A was then washed with approx 50ml of filtered water poured in and gently stirred with a glass rod before dumping off the excess water into another container labeled C:

C - Washed water + products from A

An approximately 1g  sample of the refined and washed white stuff A, was then placed into a washed (and brown paper hand-towel dried) stainless steel bowl, which was then heated for 10 minutes until it reached boiling point at which point it was spread out more thoroughly and left to simmer and dry.

K was poured through a filter and then laid out to dry.

The dried Zinc Chloride was ground into fine powder using mortar and pestle, and placed into a container marked Zn

Of all the combinations tried so far, only The Boric Acid + Waterglass resulted in a fully hardened material resembling epoxy.

2 new batch samples of Geopolymer were made using 2 grams of waterglass dissolved into 35ml of H20

Batch A used ~1 gram of boric acid mixed in the 50 g of talc for hardener

Batch B used ~1 gram of Aluminum Hydroxide, with a tiny amount of Boric acid and Zn residue from earlier experiments.