dagabu Posted August 3, 2011 Posted August 3, 2011 (edited) I have a gallon of waterglass that I have been using for pyro glue and for fireproofing the nozzles on Z-bombs and it works well but for $12.00 a gallon, its just too expensive to roll tubes with. Mixed with Casein, it makes an exceptional glue to roll tubes from. This is important when making endburners or wheels that depend on a tube that will not burn through. While looking around for Bentonite clay for rocket nozzles, I found out that there is a newer type of cat litter that is made from sodium silicate! Make sure that it is sodium silicate (waterglass) and not Zeolite, as this is also used for a litter. Clear Choice Crystals Cat Litter seems to be 100% sodium silicate with no other colored additives and makes fine glue. Casine Glue Part 1 mix (The actual glue make fresh each time) 100 casein 225 water 25 slaked lime (pickling lime) Part 2 mix (Extends Working Life) 70 waterglass (Sodium Silicate) (crystal cat litter)100 water Part 3 mix (Prevents Mold and Insect damage) 3 copper sulfate 40 water -dag Edited August 4, 2011 by dagabu
Goofy Posted August 3, 2011 Posted August 3, 2011 Good find! How well do the crystals dissolve? goofy
FrankRizzo Posted August 3, 2011 Posted August 3, 2011 Dag, The crystals are made *from* sodium silicate, but are not sodium silicate. They are silica gel.
Mumbles Posted August 3, 2011 Posted August 3, 2011 It is however sold as a solid in places. Using it as a cat litter could probably make for a very difficult to clean litter box, or kitty being permanently glued to something nearby.
dagabu Posted August 4, 2011 Author Posted August 4, 2011 (edited) Dag, The crystals are made *from* sodium silicate, but are not sodium silicate. They are silica gel. It is however sold as a solid in places. Using it as a cat litter could probably make for a very difficult to clean litter box, or kitty being permanently glued to something nearby. the "crystal cat litter" I found is silica gel Well I'll be damned! Thanks guys, I had no idea this was the case. Interestingly, the tubes are strong and seem to resist burn through much better then white glue rolled tubes. OK, lets try this one more time. Looking on the gOOgle, I see that there are some tutorials for making sodium silicate from sodium hydroxide and crystal cat litter (silica gel). 2 questions occur to me, can this be as easy as heating the two chems (40:60) along with some water to make the sodium silicate? Is this silica gel the same silica gel that is inside the packets of desiccant found in electronics and such? Sorry about the kitty sticking to stuff, Mum. -dag Edited August 4, 2011 by dagabu
moondogman Posted August 4, 2011 Posted August 4, 2011 Well I'll be damned! Thanks guys, I had no idea this was the case. Interestingly, the tubes are strong and seem to resist burn through much better then white glue rolled tubes. Could one of you spell out the process in which they make the silica gel from the sodium silicate? -dag So If it is silica gel shouldnt you be able to dry it in the oven and use it as a dessicant??Steve
FrankRizzo Posted August 4, 2011 Posted August 4, 2011 Is this silica gel the same silica gel that is inside the packets of desiccant found in electronics and such? Sorry about the kitty sticking to stuff, Mum. -dag Yep, sure is! It's a very cheap source of desiccant. Most brands are perfumed though, so it'll make your whistle mix stink like lilacs or whatever.
allrocketspsl Posted August 5, 2011 Posted August 5, 2011 I have a gallon of waterglass that I have been using for pyro glue and for fireproofing the nozzles on Z-bombs and it works well but for $12.00 a gallon, its just too expensive to roll tubes with. Mixed with Casein, it makes an exceptional glue to roll tubes from. This is important when making endburners or wheels that depend on a tube that will not burn through. While looking around for Bentonite clay for rocket nozzles, I found out that there is a newer type of cat litter that is made from sodium silicate! Make sure that it is sodium silicate (waterglass) and not Zeolite, as this is also used for a litter. Clear Choice Crystals Cat Litter seems to be 100% sodium silicate with no other colored additives and makes fine glue. Casine Glue Part 1 mix (The actual glue make fresh each time) 100 casein 225 water 25 slaked lime (pickling lime) Part 2 mix (Extends Working Life) 70 waterglass (Sodium Silicate) (crystal cat litter)100 water Part 3 mix (Prevents Mold and Insect damage) 3 copper sulfate 40 water -dag I roll tubes in minutes,using plain old border paste(wall paper paste)easy to handle when dried they are rock hard show little burniing
dagabu Posted August 5, 2011 Author Posted August 5, 2011 I roll tubes in minutes,using plain old border paste(wall paper paste)easy to handle when dried they are rock hard show little burniing Side by side tests will show you incredible differences in wall strength and burn through resistance, try one side by side and you will see what I mean. I am also getting some Phenolic Resin to roll tubes with, if I can find some good quality rag paper on a roll I think I can make a tube that can handle 800psi. -dag
Nitrato Posted April 6, 2012 Posted April 6, 2012 (edited) Hello Thank you guys for the info. I have about a kilo of comercial sodium metasilicate crystals. I was wondering if dissolving some of it in hot water and mixing with wheat paste or (better) white glue would give some pyro glue. Unfortunately I dont have casein. edit: dagabu, maybe Im loosing something, but what are the ratios between the part 1, 2 and 3 to give the final glue mix? Thanks Edited April 6, 2012 by Nitrato
Nitrato Posted April 6, 2012 Posted April 6, 2012 I tried right now: 20,0g of Na2SiO3*5H2O crystals were added to 25mL of tap water in a plastic cup; since the water lowered its temperature (endothermic dissolution), I assume that this silicate should be of the 'neutral' type. After stir it a bit, put on a hot water bath and stirred until all remaining crystals dissolved. The result was 35mL of homemade water glass. Then about 100mL of PVA white glue were added to the cup and mixed, but a weird thing happened. The concentrated metassilicate solution dont mixed with glue, instead it 'sucked' the water from it, and the result was a semi-solid white mass floating in a weaker metassilicate solution. Oh crap! Im wondering if this procedure should work with wheat paste.. What you think? The another possibility is to pre-treat my kraft paper with water glass and let it dry before making tubes, cases, etc with it but Im worried that of the paper loosing its smooth texture (bad specially for tube making), or maybe the silicate dont drying completely..
gregkdc1 Posted April 6, 2012 Posted April 6, 2012 I read somewhere that sodium silicate is used as a glue for cardboard so it makes me wonder if you could just use straight silicate solution as the binder? I have been thinking about making a reusable sugar motor with paper and sodium silicate just to show that it can be done, it works with PVC so why not paper?
theinkdon Posted October 1, 2015 Posted October 1, 2015 Zombie thread I know, but thought I'd resurrect it instead of starting a new one because it's exactly on-point with what I wanted to ask.I want to buy some sodium silicate but it's pretty expensive, especially when adding shipping. I found on Amazon sodium metasilicate for 9.50 a pound with free shipping, and am trying to find out if it can be used similarly (for our purposes of fireproofing nozzle holes and whatnot). Wikipedia and the interwebs haven't been very helpful, and this was the only thread I found here on APC that mentions the "meta"silicate.So, does anyone know if it's the same? I found other threads saying the solution concentration should probably be 40%, but that it was hard to get it to dissolve.One of the threads mentioned Seattle Pottery Supply being cheap, and they have it for 5.50 a quart so I'll probably just do that, but I'd still like to know if anyone has tried the metasilicate.Thanks,Mike
Col Posted October 1, 2015 Posted October 1, 2015 Its cheaper to process the silica gel cat litter using sodium hydroxide. The quantities of each are geared to the silicon dioxide/ sodium oxide ratio you want.
Mumbles Posted October 1, 2015 Posted October 1, 2015 I've never actually tried using the solid version, but allegedly metasilicate is the same stuff as the solution/syrup. Looking up solubility values make it seem pretty soluble, but still make me wonder if the 40% stuff is super saturated. Commercial product could suffer from the same issues as boric acid. There are three or four different chemical compositional versions of boric acid. They all have drastically different solubility properties. I've had bottles of orthoboric acid that have solubities 30% less than it should be. I always chalked it up to a mixture of the different forms. Maybe the sodium metasilicate suffers from the same issue? I don't know a lot about them to really make anything even resembling a wild guess.
theinkdon Posted October 2, 2015 Posted October 2, 2015 Col, I'll probably go that route. Thanks for the suggestion because I didn't know it was possible. I have silica gel that's used to dry flowers, "Flower Drying Art" by Activa Products (picked up a 1.5 lb can at a thrift store recently for 1.98; it's 12.58 on Amazon). For the NaOH are you using drain cleaner (lye)? I found some procedures for how to do it, doesn't seem too hard. Buying waterglass is a pain, isn't it? The cheapest I found was at Sheffield-Pottery.com, a quart for 5.35, which seems very reasonable given what we pay for things in pyro. I had to order two to meet their $10 minimum order, so 10.70, but shipping on that was 16.63! My $2 sodium silicate and another 2 or 3 dollars in drain cleaner should make more waterglass than I'll ever need. Mumbles, I'm glad you think the metasilicate is the same thing, because many of the references are confusing. When you search for "sodium metasilicate" on Wikipedia it redirects you to "sodium silicate," which says it's the common name for compounds with the formula Na2(SiO2)n, but then the very next sentence says, "A well-known member of this series is sodium metasilicate, Na2SiO3." Now I'm not a chemist, but I had enough Chemistry in college to know(think) that you can't get from (SiO2)n to SiO3. Maybe they meant (SiO2)3? That same article for sodium silicate lists the "IUPAC name" as "sodium metasilicate," and that's the only name there, so that's encouraging I think. Anyway, I'll try the DIY approach (I only want a little bit to fireproof nozzle holes in cardboard tubes), but I may yet buy some of the metasilicate from Amazon (9.50 for one pound or $12 for 3 pounds, free shipping) and try dissolving it. If I do I'll come back and post what I find. Thanks again,Mike
Mumbles Posted October 2, 2015 Posted October 2, 2015 Silicates are complex, and exist in many different forms. Metasilicate specifically is SiO3 2-. Orthosilicate is SiO4 4-. They exist in many imaginable ratios, forming olimeric or polymeric structures. Much of this chemistry is aqueous, and involves a lot of implied water, which is where the extra oxygen atoms come and go from. True waterglass is likely some mixture of a variety of things.
gregh Posted October 2, 2015 Posted October 2, 2015 We used sodium silicate in automatic dishwasher gel when I worked for the detergent plant. Lots of it! If only I knew back then... The batch sizes we made also contained 800 lbs of sodium benzoate. That's a lot of whistle!
Col Posted October 2, 2015 Posted October 2, 2015 You have to convert the silica gel and sodium hydroxide into equivalent dioxide/oxide values, the amount of H2O used is also plays a part., The typical useful ratio`s are 2 to 3.75, higher ones are better for adhesives.
PIL Posted October 4, 2015 Posted October 4, 2015 (edited) Col, I'll probably go that route. Thanks for the suggestion because I didn't know it was possible. I have silica gel that's used to dry flowers, "Flower Drying Art" by Activa Products (picked up a 1.5 lb can at a thrift store recently for 1.98; it's 12.58 on Amazon). For the NaOH are you using drain cleaner (lye)? I found some procedures for how to do it, doesn't seem too hard. Buying waterglass is a pain, isn't it? The cheapest I found was at Sheffield-Pottery.com, a quart for 5.35, which seems very reasonable given what we pay for things in pyro. I had to order two to meet their $10 minimum order, so 10.70, but shipping on that was 16.63! My $2 sodium silicate and another 2 or 3 dollars in drain cleaner should make more waterglass than I'll ever need. Mumbles, I'm glad you think the metasilicate is the same thing, because many of the references are confusing. When you search for "sodium metasilicate" on Wikipedia it redirects you to "sodium silicate," which says it's the common name for compounds with the formula Na2(SiO2)n, but then the very next sentence says, "A well-known member of this series is sodium metasilicate, Na2SiO3." Now I'm not a chemist, but I had enough Chemistry in college to know(think) that you can't get from (SiO2)n to SiO3. Maybe they meant (SiO2)3? That same article for sodium silicate lists the "IUPAC name" as "sodium metasilicate," and that's the only name there, so that's encouraging I think. Anyway, I'll try the DIY approach (I only want a little bit to fireproof nozzle holes in cardboard tubes), but I may yet buy some of the metasilicate from Amazon (9.50 for one pound or $12 for 3 pounds, free shipping) and try dissolving it. If I do I'll come back and post what I find. Thanks again,MikeMolten alkali is extremely corrosive and dangerous .Some materials such as glass and steel will be eaten away. As far as I know， nickel crucibles are used to contain molten alkaline substances in labs. You must wear full PPE if you still want to try it Edited October 4, 2015 by PIL
Col Posted October 4, 2015 Posted October 4, 2015 (edited) I dont use molten hydroxide, its diluted in water. With some gentle heat. it takes a while to dissolve the silicate but for less than £1 litre vs £13-£15 litre i dont mind the wait. @ Mike,I use relatively pure sodium hydroxide, drain cleaners over here have all kinds of unwanted extras. To give you some idea of cost, 1kg of hydroxide makes 5L thats suitable as a tube rolling adhesive. Its about as thick as honey, 5L weighs in at around 8.5kg Edited October 4, 2015 by Col
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