super kleer the kieselsol is white and gritty

[Runningwolf]

I was just this minute looking at a pack I got that was frozen and wondering weather it was OK, the stuff is real expensive, like $2.00, why was I even considering using the stuff. Thanks. bk

Expensive? Thats a good price on it. I have seen it almost double that price and for what it does it's awesome. A few of us started buying it in bulk form which really decreases the cost.

 

[Nyle]

Is it still ok to use?

My Son is a Chemistry major and we looked up Kiselsol and it appears to be silica, so we believe a fine powder of silica is added to water to make it. When it dehydrates again, it forms into crystals.

We took a mortar and pestle, and carefully fine ground the silica back to a powder and added it to distilled water. Then used as normal with chitosan. We are awaiting the results but it ought to work as intended.

 

[sour_grapes]

Good luck to you, but I don;t think this will work. Kiesesol is colloidal silica. I don't think you can make a colloid by grinding crystalline silica. These wiki articles may be useful for you or your son:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colloidal_silica
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stöber_process

 

[Nyle]

Good luck to you, but I don;t think this will work. Kiesesol is colloidal silica. I don't think you can make a colloid by grinding crystalline silica. These wiki articles may be useful for you or your son:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colloidal_silica
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stöber_process

Thank you for the details that makes sense and it's really cool to see the process. I should have said this was an experiment and it did indeed not work. Though it did clear about 50% or so. That might have been just the Chitosan.

Do you think that you could freeze the product to keep it from transitioning back into a solid? Or would that not work?

I can't be the only home wine and beer maker that would want to buy a 10 pack but not use them up quickly enough.