Huh, didn’t know that gardeners were essentially doing silica sol-gel syntheses. A note of caution: contact with TEOS and other organosilicates can and will cause permanent eye and lung damage (converts to silica, and, broadly, rocks in lungs bad). Make sure your work area is well ventilated and ideally use some kind of eye protection against splashing, don’t touch you’re face, and wash up when done. TEOS is less reactive once in contact with water (it hydrolyzes to silicic acids and eventually silica, with rates depending strongly on pH).
Also note that adding TEOS to water does slightly lower pH due to this hydrolysis reaction, but it is much less severe of an adjustment than potassium silicate.
Huh, didn’t know that gardeners were essentially doing silica sol-gel syntheses. A note of caution: contact with TEOS and other organosilicates can and will cause permanent eye and lung damage (converts to silica, and, broadly, rocks in lungs bad). Make sure your work area is well ventilated and ideally use some kind of eye protection against splashing, don’t touch you’re face, and wash up when done. TEOS is less reactive once in contact with water (it hydrolyzes to silicic acids and eventually silica, with rates depending strongly on pH).
Also note that adding TEOS to water does slightly lower pH due to this hydrolysis reaction, but it is much less severe of an adjustment than potassium silicate.