For another project, I was looking for a way to fireproof wood. I remembered an expired patent that I came across some time ago. To fireproof wood in the patent, the researchers soaked wood in various concentrations of sodium silicate, also known as Water Glass.
Sodium silicate turns into a foam at high temperatures that insulates and blocks oxygen from entering the wood beneath. In that way it should make the wood completely fireproof, right? Only one way to find out!
I soaked pine shims in a 50/50 solution of commercially available Water Glass and distilled water. One was soaked for 12hrs and the other for 24hrs.
Then, I let them cure for 24hrs. After curing, they appeared dry, but they likely still had excess water trapped inside. So, I dried these two shims and the control in my furnace for 2 hours at 120C. After that, there appeared to be no more moisture given off by the shims. They should be completely dry.
Now for the trial by fire…
The control lights on fire immediately. A little later, the left side of the 24 hour sample lights up.
It appears that the left side of the 24 hour sample did not absorb the sodium silicate very well. The right side of the sample stays intact through the test and never caught fire. It seems that this sample didn’t absorb the sodium silicate evenly.
In the treated samples, you can see bright yellow-orange flames. This color indicates that sodium is boiling off. The Water Glass protects the wood for some time, but it eventually boils away when exposed to such a high temperature flame.
The control and 24 hour samples take around 3 minutes to collapse.
The 12 hour sample takes a whopping 6 and a half minutes to collapse.
The sodium silicate may not make wood fireproof, but it sure makes it very fire resistant.
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