I stopped listening to any of the chemistry as soon as he started bouncing the balls LOL

LMAO Yeaah it was a fun project but considering how simple the reaction is I realized 90% of my footage ended up being just me throwing the thing

And a hundred percent reason to remember the name!

@@integral_chemistry I assume the sodium ions remain stuck inside the silica? How about use an alkyl ammonium salt that can be liberated as a gas when ethanol is added?

​@@integral_chemistry - Gotta have the right silicone "fillers" between the "good" stuff. wink-wink :D

Right? I've been wanting to do more accessible stuff lately as I realized I've been straying into projects no normal person would ever be able to put together at home, and the initial point of the channel was to try and make chemistry more accessible 😅

​@@integral_chemistry - Next up: Making silicone-meth-oxide lol

Yessir! I almost did this video starting from sand but I decided to keep it short

Please make it from sand (it would be so cool)​ @@integral_chemistry Or make it a KZfaq short

you should try heat treating it, maybe it melts it together stronger!

do the reaction inside of acetone, and maybe it connects better when the acetone evaporates.

He's telling you not to be a drunk plumber working in a beach house.

Those sound exactly like this one honestly. I believe we had something similar growing up, where the most rigid balls bounced way too far and always got lost lol

The trick is not having glass randomly standing around outside of a cabinet, or inside the room you play in at all

It's also possible to destroy a showcase glazing with a flummy - believe me, I know what I am talking about: I have got two kids at home... 😉

"Super bounce balls" were usually a different rubber; I believe polybutadiene.

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I think I saw that one! I considered also starting from glass/sand but decided to keep the video short. But yeah I feel this reaction isn't crazy well known considering how simple and accessible it is. Definitely be cool for a high school lab

Well now you’ve gone and given me so many ideas! The old KOR Chanel had a “make your own rubber” and I’ve rescued some critical projects at work with it. I’m sure this could add insulative (I’m not sure about the spelling there) properties for some other tasks like freeze drying chamber seals!

The foam idea is very interesting. In FDM 3D printing we use RTV silicone to produce custom insulating socks. Making the silicone foam as it cures might further enhance insulation properties.

@@daliasprints9798 I don't think the heat leakage through silicone sock is that high. Most of the heat loss in an already insulated hotend even with shitty insulation occurs due to expelling the melt to actually print things. Besides floppy fragile sock is inconvenient. I do like this synthesis method in this video. If it produces silicone which is high temperature stable and more on the rigid side, i might use it to produce a sock.

@@SianaGearz That's actually not the case. I use MPC heater control where the model is accounting for where the power goes, and only up to 25W goes into flow, while 55-80W (depending on CPAP power level) goes into the air (120W cartridge).

I did a good deal more research over the last week and I'm fairly confident the mechanism from the literature I posted in the video is wrong. My best guess at this point is that it is cross-linking, but the cross-links are Si-O-Si with sodium ethoxide acting as a leaving group. However, that's just what makes the most sense to me. I've seen tons of other totally plausible ideas thrown around here in the comments. I do think the wet sand analogy is pretty accurate too, and I think I downplayed just how much persistence you really need to force that crap into a ball. It does work eventually though! Just really have to be patient

Glad to hear it! I've been wanting to do more videos on things people could more reasonably (and safely) do at home

Totally second this. I can see ethanol linking like C2H5-O-Si, but I do not see the CH3 end deprotonating like that.

Yeah I think the mechanism from my source is wrong. Gave it a closer look, considered the comments and did some more reading and my best explanation of the reaction is that the cross-link is Si-O-Si, with the ethoxide acting as a leaving group on the Si atom. Best I have for now, but a lot of comments have proposed many other ideas that also may be correct.. Honestly the lack of bubbling should have been a giveaway that no oxygen was produced, guess I just got too excited someone else did the mechanism for me lol.

I hadn't thought of that but maybe. I'm curious now how long ago they discovered that you could dissolve silicon dioxide in lye.. that would definitely be the tougher part I'd think

I doubt it. We have the distinct advantage of good pure reagents these days. That's relatively recent. They certainly didn't have pure ingredients in the middle ages.

@@nolanwhite1971Lye, silica, and ethanol have been available in high purity for quite some time tho

@@integral_chemistry Earliest reports of dissolved silica goes back to the 1500s, though waterglass was only properly studied in the 1800s.

@@nolanwhite1971 alchemists' had quite pure H2SO4 for a long time, but I am not sure about NaOH. Most old NaOH/KOH making processes are heavily contaminated with NaCO3/KCO3, good for soap making, but would produce contaminated water glass, which can be cleaned but I don't think they knew or cared much. They had really pure 96% alcohol though, but they did not have any 100% ethanol.

Those guys are both pretty rad! I'll definitely take it lol

Also PET and PETG.

In theory yeah definitely! I used a big excess of ethanol here, no idea what would happen if I cut the amount back significantly. My gut says it would be really gooey

@@integral_chemistry aha! So then, if you were to reduce the ethanol slightly, could you in theory make a silica gel (which is what this technically is), that mimics industrial silicone?

I'm still trying to think of more applications considering what a neat and easily accessible chemical it is! So far I've got this and growing a chemical garden

@@integral_chemistry that's pretty cool already! This is not exactly chemistry and maybe more something like materials engineering I guess, but I have been playing with using waterglass as a structural adhesive for binding and rigidifying carbon fiber for high temperature applications and I'm pretty sure there is potential there. Probably a question of finding the right waterglass formulation and additives... what I've tried seemed promising but kinda reverted to NaOH after a while...

I work in a waterglasses factory and you wouldn't believe how many industries use them. For an amateur chemist though it can be used for the chemical garden, as a raw material for making pure silica, to make homemade silica gel, for glueing and fireproofing reaction apparatuses, for metal casting and many other applications.

I wonder how well alcohol would permeate without agitation. Could put the sodium silicate in a mold and add the alcohol on the surface. Or more likely, use this to make thin sheets.

Glad you liked it!

I tried using a few different types of alcohol with mixed results. I did a bit more research since posting this and I believe the actual mechanism is the formation of sodium ethoxide which then acts as a leaving group forming Si-O-Si bonds as the crosslink.

I did a good deal more research over the last week and I'm fairly confident the mechanism from the literature I posted in the video is wrong. My best guess at this point is that it is cross-linking, but the cross-links are Si-O-Si with sodium ethoxide acting as a leaving group. However, that's just what makes the most sense to me. I've seen tons of other totally plausible ideas thrown around here in the comments.

Huh very good to know! Very much appreciate the input from people who know more than me. Interestingly enough though I did make crystalline metasilicate myself which I actually tried first. The result was a think slime that didn't really hold its shape. Definitely cool in its own way, but I felt not as interesting for the video lol

@@integral_chemistry Seems right. When dissolved in water, metasilicate gives mainly isolated (SiO3)2- anions but the more silica in waterglass, the more polymeric the anions become. Long silicate chains probably work better in creating bouncy balls.

Lmk how it goes!

I might need to do some homework on that myself 😅 polymers are an enigma to me much of the time

I have tried this a few times now and I can’t get it to turn solid. I’m using waterglass I made using potassium hydroxide and silica gel and everclear 🤷‍♂️

No problem at all! And yeah I spent about an hour last night toying with this reaction to try and make it make sense to me, as I always assumed cross-linking could only be achieved by acid hydrolysis. In the end I just decided to copy the mechanism from my source instead of trying to make my own.. Anyway yeah I'll try and put the link in the video description, maybe someone else can sus it out.

hey buddy as have mentioned that you are a newbie to the chemistry land! I have some suggestion books along with videos. The first step is you have to understand what is chemistry and what is not, get used to its language and how to perform stoichiometric calculations. For this I can suggest you to either study the Mortimer or Silberberg general chemistry books. You can read the book in your native language or English edition. This is optional due to which language do you prefer. The second step is really wide and covers many branches like Organic chemistry, Inorganic chemistry, Analytical chemistry, Physical chemistry etc. you can study on these branches but remember that this is not meaning that you can cover every topic. Choose which one you want and which one do you like. The third step also exists but it is based on academical research in or out of the university as PhD or post doc. For example most of the KZfaq dudes do Organic chemistry. Like Apoptosis. For the videos I know a few channels covering chemistry : Nile Red [Mostly Organic chemistry] NurdRage [Amateur available methods and experiments chemistry, Inorganic and some time Analytical chemistry] Thy Lab, Lab coats [Both are mostly organic but second covers some cool physics stuff] The periodic videos [Covers almost whole periodic table elements explanation + some other cool explanation] Apoptosis !!!! etc. This list goes on and I was tried hard to remember the channels that I have visited recently. Also you can check out mit open course.

Try Sciencemadness forum, this is great place where to learn chemistry (not just organics, practically every field of chemistry is covered there). Community is very friendly and helpful.

@@chemnobeliumlab1520 Thanks! 👍

All you need is diy water glass from sand and possibly potash (potassium hydroxide?) and diy ethanol which can be made using the same method as prison white lightning

*looks at the bottle of linalool, which was obtained as a consequence of the exact same series of videos as above* :)

I'll have to give it a shot! I tried methanol instead but it kinda just turned into a weak slime. Didn't think to try longer-chain alcohols

@@integral_chemistry I have a large bottle of geraniol too, might want to give that a try too. Which is again a large chain, unsaturated primary alcohol - as opposed to unsaturated tertiary like linalool.

I have tried propylene glycol and it resulted in more rigid but still flexible material, very bouncy. The reaction time seems the same as with ethanol. Mixture of glycerol and propylene glycol is still curing and I think I made too much of a punk-approach to it with just mix this sh*t at random proportion. I think my goal is to experiment with the number of cross-links and their own length compared to physical prop of cured material. Not that as I’ve asked myself to study that but still)

@@injectormajor Neat! I wonder if there is a mechanism to make it dry enough to not need the drying step...

I'll be honest I'm still struggling to understand this mechanism myself. I tried for a while last night to put my own version together but I couldn't balance it, nor explain electron movement. In the end I just gave up and copied the mechanism from the literature. I'll probably just post a link in the video description and see if anyone else can figure that one out

Honestly when I did the research for this project last week that was the first time I made the connection myself.

Dude I totally forgot about that movie 😅

Sure! What is it called?

@@integral_chemistry go to my community and the link will be there

@@integral_chemistry it's called The Chemtubers

@@integral_chemistry uh everytime I tell you youtube deletes my comment lol

I think you're right.. honestly I just took the word of a paper I found and when I couldn't make the mechanism work myself I just figured the author knew better than I did. Should have added some disclaimer about my uncertainty.. I'll look into it a bit more but your idea sounds much more feasible as a mechanism. Weirdly there's not a ton of info on this process despite it being so simple and accessible

@@integral_chemistry Ah yeah, I was wondering if there was something I missed, would be neat to turn Q groups into T or D groups like that...

I might have to give that a try! (Or at least read into it first). Tbh I know a lot more about carbon-based polymers than these silicone ones, but this project has definitely gotten me interested

Yes exactly!^ I didn't even know why until I did this video

@@integral_chemistry What do they call it there? In Spain and Portugal it's called acetic silicone, on other countries it's labeled as acidic silicone, acid silicone or even acetoxy silicone. It's much cheaper but causes many metals to rust and therefore damages mirrors, electrical and electronic components and it hardly sticks to concrete surfaces. The other is known as neutral silicone or acid-free silicone.

It might polymerize right away because of the temperature

LMAO

Yes, so many plastics are just slight variations on side chains used. Sometimes they can have quite dramatic effects!

I don't think it would work tbh. I tried a few other alcohols and each time I just got a sort of noncohesive slime.. which I guess was cool in it's own way tbh

LMAO it was surprisingly fun to play around with. Took me until this video to realized I haven't played with one of these in years

@@integral_chemistry 1 inch bouncy balls were in gum ball type of vending machine for 25 cents as a kid. Kinda learned geometry and not to bounce it around the house. The one thing I remember is when the ball bounced it would reverse the spin. Like it could grip the surface and put the energy into reverse spin. They were fun to play with my friends and the game was don't look stupid trying to chase the ball. We had a lot of fun chasing around the ball and laughing at each other. Thank you 🙏

Also you do not have any Si-C bonds as far as I can see, does this qualify as a polysiloxane?

That's actually a good question.. let me go back to the little paper I found on this and see if I can come back with a good answer. Technically this was from what looked like a undergrad-level lab activity, and I wasn't actually able to find any formal literature on this reaction. I'll look into it a bit more and see what I can find

@@integral_chemistry you can use cyclopentadimethyldisiloxane (dimethicone) and some catalyst to do it pretty easily :) nit/lice removal solution is mainly that

I did a good deal more research over the last week and I'm fairly confident the mechanism from the literature I posted in the video is wrong. My best guess at this point is that it is cross-linking, but the cross-links are Si-O-Si with sodium ethoxide acting as a leaving group. However, that's just what makes the most sense to me. I've seen tons of other totally plausible ideas thrown around here in the comments.

The black ones? Those are actually pads for dental/tattoo work I found on Amazon. They are kinda flimsy compared to the puppy pads but WAY cheaper

@@integral_chemistry Ah I see, I will probably get some during non-filming work as things get messy sometimes.

Well.... that was certainly a thing. Well worth the brain damage, i'm sure...

Oh christ 😅 honestly a thermite-type reaction could do it, the tough part would be collecting it afterward

​@@integral_chemistry The longer the cooling time the larger the silicon pieces. You can also recrystallize silicon from molten metals like molten zinc, that way you can extract it from the reaction mixture.

Plasticisers are a misconception, most plastics you use day to day do not rely on them or don't use any, and in turn with a couple exceptions they can be incinerated completely. PP PE PS PET are the bulk of the plastics used and they can be incinerated completely. There are other trouble additives though, like halogen based fire retardants necessarily used in most PS items and also PVC the polymer per se that's a troublesome one.

Strong alkalis just dissolve silicon dioxide creating silicates. Molten NaOH easily dissolves glass and concentrated NaOH solutions can dissolve regular sand under high pressure. If silica is in the form of silica gel it is even easier, you can easily dissolve silica gel cat litter in concentrated sodium hydroxide solution. It's an acid-base reaction, silicon dioxide is a very weak acidic oxide.

NurdRage covered the reaction in his sodium series. It's a common problem when working with NaOH, especially at higher temperatures. -- it likes to dissolve your glassware unless you completely eliminate water from your reaction. I've lost a few flasks to it. NurdRage starts his reactions by destroying ALL of the water with sodium metal.

@@eclectichoosier5474 Thanks, this was not taught in my chem class :)

literally

If so, I really like your thermite series

You sound fun.. Its a silicate polymer, no different and honestly safer/more biodegradable than one you'd purchase at a store. I found the one I initially lost (and included footage to show I found it), and I consulted the two neighbors down before I started which honestly was a courtesy and completely unnecessary. You must completely misunderstand fundamental chemistry because to imply throwing a safer version of a rubber ball down the street to be criminal is absurd.