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These properties make hydrated sodium silicates ideal for use in one of their most common consumer products: powdered laundry and dishwasher detergents. The beads can be packaged for sale to commercial users much like ground cullet, but they dissolve more readily than the anhydrous form of water glass. Highly viscous solutions can be spray-dried to form glasslike beads of hydrated sodium silicate. Viscosity is a product of the formation of silicate polymers, the silicon (Si) and oxygen (O) atoms being linked by covalent bonds into large negatively charged chain or ring structures that incorporate the positively charged sodium ions as well as water molecules. In either production route, the higher the ratio of SiO 2 to Na 2O and the higher the concentration of both ingredients, the more viscous the solution. Sodium silicate liquid can also be prepared directly by dissolving silica sand under pressure in a heated aqueous solution of caustic soda (sodium hydroxide, NaOH): The solution is cooled to a viscous liquid and sold in containers ranging in size from small jars to large drums or tanks. Lump or ground water glass in turn can be fed into pressurized reactors for dissolving in hot water. This roasting produces fused glassy lumps called cullet, which can be cooled and sold in that form or ground up and sold as powders. Zachariasen’s classic definition of glass as a three-dimensional network of atoms forming. The introduction to this article referred to W.H.
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It is commonly produced by roasting various quantities of soda ash (sodium carbonate, Na 2CO 3) and silica sand (a ubiquitous source of SiO 2) in a furnace at temperatures between about 1,000 and 1,400 ☌ (approximately 1,800 and 2,500 ☏), a process that gives off carbon dioxide (CO 2) and produces sodium silicate (Na 2SiO 3 usually represented by its two constituents, Na 2 O and SiO 2): Water glass has been manufactured since the 19th century, and the basic principles of making “silicate of soda” have not changed since that time. It is used as a convenient source of sodium for many industrial products, as a builder in laundry detergents, as a binder and adhesive, as a flocculant in water-treatment plants, and in many other applications. Water glass is sold as solid lumps or powders or as a clear, syrupy liquid. Water glass, also called sodium silicate or soluble glass, a compound containing sodium oxide (Na 2O) and silica (silicon dioxide, SiO 2) that forms a glassy solid with the very useful property of being soluble in water.
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#Silica water how to
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