Research

The employees are following the approach of using liquid silicates as "glue" for mineral materials.

 

What are silicates?

Grafische Darstellung eines Siliziumdioxid-Moleküls
Silicon dioxide is an oxide of silicon (SiO2). Silicon dioxide is not the same as sand, even though a large part of sand consists of SiO2.

Silicates are mineral materials whose central structure consists of a silicon-oxygen bond, in which aluminum is often also involved. The purest silicate structure is found in quartz, whose main deposit is sand. It is therefore easiest to describe silicates as polymeric sand.

 

Geopolymerization

There is evidence that silicate-based materials were already used as a type of concrete in ancient times. Today, the production of new silicate-based composites is referred to as geopolymerization, because the geologically available materials are bonded together by a polymer reaction. This geopolymerization, or the building of a geopolymer structure, is the key to the increased industrial use of desert sand. The geopolymer structure is in turn formed from water glass, which can already be produced inexpensively from desert sand, soda ash and solar energy (S3 approach).