How To: Make sodium silicate from drain cleaner and gel beads

Watch this science video tutorial from Nurd Rage on how to make sodium silicate from drain cleaner and gel beads with Dr. Lithium.

See how to make the sodium silicate from drain cleaner and those little gel beads you find packaged with electronic items for humidity control.

The procedure is really simple, just make a solution of 10mL with 4-8grams of sodium hydroxide, use the full 8 grams if you want stoichiometric sodium silicate, and 4 grams if you want "liquid glass" solution for doing the chemical garden experiments.

Heat the solution and add in 6 grams worth of crushed silica gel beads. The finer the better. if they aren't dissolving, you might need to add more water.

Once it's dissolved, you'll have a concentrated solution of sodium silicate.

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