Does anyone know of a source for (affordable) monosilicic acid, or how to silicify potassium silicate?

[DeltaTJ]

I've been learning about the pros of monosilicic/orthosilicic acid over potassium silicate salt, and I can't seem to find an affordable option for mono/ortho. Does anyone know how to silicify potassium silicate into monosilicic acid, or have a relatively affordable source for it??

 

[ChiefRunningPhist]

Worth it?

Is ortho-silicic acid worth the additional expense in hydroponics? – Science in Hydroponics

scienceinhydroponics.com

According to the write up, it seems the cheaper potassium silicate accomplishes the same goal?

If you're serious about it this might give some insight, looks to be a bit of a process...

"
During the manufacturing process of ch-OSA liquid, choline chloride is subjected to a chemical reaction with dry hydrochloric acid and silicon tetrachloride, and, after that, water is added. Sodium hydroxide is then added to the ch-OSA solution for neutralization, followed by the concentration of the entire solution by distillation under vacuum. At the end, glycerol is added.
"

Idk what molar ratios to use or exact process, ect, but figured this might help you get started. Bottom of pg6 on the attached .pdf is where the quote came from. OSA does seem to have some significant benefits over the above mentioned silicate salt, ie less ambiguity in terms of what the true available concentration is, though you may be able to achieve similar results with a silicate salt it seems.

 

[DeltaTJ]

Thanks man! Lots of interesting information in both of those articles, scienceinhydroponics is the bomb! My concern with potassium silicate salt is its bio-availability. Potassium silicate salt has to go through silicification before it can really be utilized to its full potential, which can take weeks, or months of exposure to microbes in the rhizosphere. In my mind, it makes sense that over time (especially in hydroponics, where there's usually a closed-loop style system, with water being recirculated for prolonged periods of time) insoluble potassium silicate salts would/could be gathering and sitting in the microbe-rich root ball of a plant (as the roots grow, I would think they'd be able to amass even more insoluble material), slowly becoming silicified as time passes, generating some amount of silicic acid, rendering any positive results I've achieved from using potassium silicate products in a kind of grey area where I can't quite be sure if the potassium silicate or possible "slow release" OSA was the catalyst for any increase in yield/resistance to PM/etc. Might just buy some Power Si and do a small DWC side-by-side with Armor Si... these are the things that keep me up at night, lol!

 

[inthetrees]

Another issue with Pot sil is potential for lockout from an overabundance of potassium in flower... especially if your heavy on the bloom boosters. Dont ask me how i know.

You also can't run Power Si in any recirculating setup just so ya know. Coco and soilless is fine, but for recirc systems you can only foliar.

 

[ChiefRunningPhist]

From my understanding the silicate salts are soluable but more so at higher temps, and slightly acidic pH.

It seems that the silicate salts can dissolve into water to form OSA but if the solution drifts to basic, the resulting OSA can react and precipitate out.

It also seems that the resulting OSA from dissolving silicate salts into water ends up wanting to attach to and react with lots of other undesirables, and so this is where the ambiguity in how much of the OSA in the system is actually bio-available. When they add choline to the OSA solution they find that the choline keeps the OSA from reacting to all the undesireables, stabilizes it, the choline bonds and keeps the OSA small and bio-available and not attached to a big glob of other stuff (polymerization).

Figuring out how long the OSA stays in bio available form given a certain nute concentration and recipe would give you the info needed to schedule your flushes or reservoir refreshes to optimize the OSA bioavailability (once it polymerized too much you'd want to start over and replace everything with new uncontaminated stuff), but I haven't looked much more into it, and not sure if I'm comprehending accurately.

 

[ChiefRunningPhist]

*im not a chemical engineer and these are just thoughts and I'm not sure if I'm right and you'd want to ask actual experts to validate*

Pretty sure...
Upon further review it looks like potassium silicate will dissolve in water, but only in very small amounts at room temp and not until you get to 80C will it be ~300g/L. So boil your water to dissolve the potassium silicate. When it cools it turns into a thick honey but won't precipitate out.

Getting shaky...
Then it looks like you'd have to dissolve a lil glob of the honey you just made into some water and add some acid till there was no more bubbles till the solution was slightly acidic, and then you just made silicic acid.

Pretty sure...
But this acid needs to be stabilized with something or it will want to polymerize and form long chains and become unavailable to humans or plants, this is why they add choline or other things ect.

(From attached .pdf from previous post)


Getting shaky....
I'm not sure if its as easy as adding some choline chloride salt to your water before you add your honey glob to perform your acid titration?

Getting shaky...
You'd want to probably have more moles choline than moles of silicate.

Explaining doubt..
In the .pdf posted previously they reference dry HCl, and silicon tetrachloride, and choline chloride, so I'm not sure if an acid titration will work to create the intended molecules. The reaction might have to undergo without the presence of water.

Pretty sure...
They do then say that water is later added, and a base is introduced to neutralize the pH and then its concentrated by steam distillation under vacuum.


*attached is a .pdf of the chemical properties of potassium silicate (a SS of one of the tables from the .pdf is below)..



Pretty sure..
All that you're trying to do is "acidify" silicate salts (in this case potassium silicates), but then stabilize the resulting silicic acid that you got from "acidifying" the silicate salts with something like choline or vanillin ect so that the "acidified" silicates stay small and in bio available form.

 

[DeltaTJ]

*im not a chemical engineer and these are just thoughts and I'm not sure if I'm right and you'd want to ask actual experts to validate*

Pretty sure...
Upon further review it looks like potassium silicate will dissolve in water, but only in very small amounts at room temp and not until you get to 80C will it be ~300g/L. So boil your water to dissolve the potassium silicate. When it cools it turns into a thick honey but won't precipitate out.

Getting shaky...
Then it looks like you'd have to dissolve a lil glob of the honey you just made into some water and add some acid till there was no more bubbles till the solution was slightly acidic, and then you just made silicic acid.

Pretty sure...
But this acid needs to be stabilized with something or it will want to polymerize and form long chains and become unavailable to humans or plants, this is why they add choline or other things ect.
View attachment 84652
(From attached .pdf from previous post)


Getting shaky....
I'm not sure if its as easy as adding some choline chloride salt to your water before you add your honey glob to perform your acid titration?

Getting shaky...
You'd want to probably have more moles choline than moles of silicate.

Explaining doubt..
In the .pdf posted previously they reference dry HCl, and silicon tetrachloride, and choline chloride, so I'm not sure if an acid titration will work to create the intended molecules. The reaction might have to undergo without the presence of water.

Pretty sure...
They do then say that water is later added, and a base is introduced to neutralize the pH and then its concentrated by steam distillation under vacuum.


*attached is a .pdf of the chemical properties of potassium silicate (a SS of one of the tables from the .pdf is below)..
View attachment 84654


Pretty sure..
All that you're trying to do is "acidify" silicate salts (in this case potassium silicates), but then stabilize the resulting silicic acid that you got from "acidifying" the silicate salts with something like choline or vanillin ect so that the "acidified" silicates stay small and in bio available form.

In our world of bro science and vague conjecture, it's nice to find a community where people freely exchange this kind and quality of information/knowledge.. thanks man. Definitely going try to find some engineers to talk to about this as well! I'll be sure to post updates as things progress.

 

[inthetrees]

I forgot to add in that I tried Growsilic by Grotek. 1/4 the cost of the other guys. I wanted to foliar with Power Si but I can't get it here in Canada. Found this growsilic stuff on amazon but the only thing it seemed to do was raise my pH. Didn't see any benefit versus using no Si additive. It doesn't have any amino acids or additives though like the competitors.

I was confused when I got the bottle and it said 44% monosylicic. You look at power Si and i think they only put in like 1.5% or something like that. When I called Grotek to ask why theirs had so much compared to the competitors, I couldn't get an answer past "more is better".