Potassium silicate gel

[@mysticsound7030]

¿para qué sirve?

[@darknectarcooperative7242]

Thank you for demonstrating this! Would it gel at the same rate if you added the potassium silicate first and acid after? A lot of silicate products instruct to add silicate to RO water before mixing with anything else. If the same quantity of potassium silicate is dissolved in a reservoir 100x or 1000x the volume of that beaker, when it polymerizes... Will it be suspended in the solution or precipitate and settle out? If it will stay suspended, shouldn't it collect on roots and the plants will find a way to adsorb it?

[@ScienceinHydroponics]

I recommend reading my blog post about most commonly asked questions about silicon (scienceinhydroponics.com/2023/02/common-questions-about-silicon-in-nutrient-solutions.html). Silicates only polymerize here due to the very high concentration they are at. To make potassium silicates bioavailable, you need to follow proper dilution rates and preparation processes (see blog post cited above).

[@brucetutton7897]

What accounts for the speed of this reaction? The concentration of the solution? I've recently started adding silica to solution immediately before feeding. The difference in the plants is astounding - very strong, tough vegetative growth, presumable some of my silica is uptaken before polymerization. Thanks for the uploads Daniel.

[@ScienceinHydroponics]

The reaction only happens at high concentrations. When you have Si in solution at

[@muhsyarifhidayatullah165]

How to get Potassium Silicate?

[@dogodogo5891]

greetings, i dissolved quartz want to check its mineral content, liquid was silicate and rock content, what your recommendation organic acid i should use to form a gel? i want to avoid mineral/ phospor based

[@ScienceinHydroponics]

Almost any acid you use will cause the silicate to gel. You can use white vinegar to do this too.

[@emorycaudill]

Pretty cool video. First thought was a time released silicate that stabilizes PH but with the Ph of 6.2 leads me to believe your making some culture media for cloning?

[@ScienceinHydroponics]

Thanks for your comment, the objective was to show that large concentrations of silicate are very unstable at a pH of 5.5-6.5 and will readily polymerize.

[@emorycaudill]

@@ScienceinHydroponics Ahh I see and demonstration of why H4Sio4 is deployed.

[@vitreloy]

i made this experiment frugally and my solution was cloudy (my drain cleaner, 95-98% sulfuric acid was pretty whitish) the solution became gel after 4-5 days, can i try to dry the gel and use it as a drying agent ?

[@ScienceinHydroponics]

This is silica gel, if you oven dry it you could make a drying agent, but I don't believe it is worth it given the low drying power it would have. For a better drying agent you can oven dry Epsom salt.

[@oosteveoooldsoulscorpio1249]

Be cool if you tested the ph a few times during the process, or ph meter display.. I hear silicates have very poor self life , I been using old bulletproof si for a few months and my ph keeps crashing.. Using mammoth silica about 2 feedings now and everything stable, it a soluble silicon , I think reading it was mono silicic acid but it doesn’t say that on bottle tho. It soaps up like power si and it just as expensive. After 1 feeding of power si I ditched it cause of the foam like soap bath it was making, i run rdwc and hear a lot of hydro guys losing harvest from power si from the soap foam.. I wasn’t expecting mammoth silica to foam as well but 2 weeks in there looking very happy, it’s to expensive not to use now so I’m hoping everything works out.