Silica gel for chemical garden
Posted: 15 May 2023, 13:06
Hi all,
A teacher wants to do "Chemical gardening" with his Year 11 Chemistry class. This is the method they are using:
https://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Chemical-Garden
They have actually already done this, however some students were away and we have now run out of the Silica gel that they used, and I am having trouble sourcing it again. We had 2 bottles of silica gel in the cupboard (not self-indicating - we have that as well). The bottle they used was table salt consistency. The other bottle was more flour-like in consistency, and this one did not work when they tried to use it. Both of these bottles are extremely old (such that I can barely read the labels), and the phone number on one for a Sydney number is only 6 digits long, so realllllly old.
I didn't think this would be a difficult thing to source, but it seems it is. The method says to use crushed silica beads, so I suppose we could buy some of the silica beads that are used in the desiccant sachets and crush them. But the bottle that we had seemed to be already crushed (but not powdered), so this would be better if we could get that.
Does anyone have any insight on where to source this?
Thanks!
A teacher wants to do "Chemical gardening" with his Year 11 Chemistry class. This is the method they are using:
https://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Chemical-Garden
They have actually already done this, however some students were away and we have now run out of the Silica gel that they used, and I am having trouble sourcing it again. We had 2 bottles of silica gel in the cupboard (not self-indicating - we have that as well). The bottle they used was table salt consistency. The other bottle was more flour-like in consistency, and this one did not work when they tried to use it. Both of these bottles are extremely old (such that I can barely read the labels), and the phone number on one for a Sydney number is only 6 digits long, so realllllly old.
I didn't think this would be a difficult thing to source, but it seems it is. The method says to use crushed silica beads, so I suppose we could buy some of the silica beads that are used in the desiccant sachets and crush them. But the bottle that we had seemed to be already crushed (but not powdered), so this would be better if we could get that.
Does anyone have any insight on where to source this?
Thanks!