egloskerry - 23-4-2007 at 17:00
I am looking at sheffield pottery's raw materials page (http://www.sheffield-pottery.com/Raw-Materials-Dry-Clay-Chemicals-Plaster-per-Pound-s/39.htm) at the Soda, which I believe is Sodium Oxide. They
call it "Soda, Kona F-4". Does anyone know what "kona f-4" is?
Feldspar
MadHatter - 23-4-2007 at 17:12
That's what Kona F-4 is. IIRC, it has a hardness of 6 on the Mohr's hardness scale:
1=talc, 2=gypsum, 3=calcite...10=diamond. As for chemical use, I don't know of any.
egloskerry - 23-4-2007 at 18:05
Can sodium oxide be extracted from it?
not_important - 23-4-2007 at 19:33
Yes, with a good deal effort and cost.
Soda ash is Na2CO3, pretty cheap at pottery supply. Washing soda is Na2CO3 with water of crystallisation, baking soda is NaHCO3; both from grocery
stores.
But to get Na2O out of them is really difficult, the usual route to it is through oxidation of sodium.
egloskerry - 23-4-2007 at 20:02
They also sell soda ash, though. I thought it might've be Na2CO3 originally, too, but they wouldn't list the same thing twice. I guess I'll have to
ask them about it when I call. It'd be nice to get some. I'd like to try reducing it to pure sodium.
garage chemist - 23-4-2007 at 23:15
Nobody sells sodium oxide. Na2CO3 and NaOH will not give off CO2 or H2O, no matter how extreme the temperature is.
Sodium oxide can exclusively be prepared by burning sodium and reducing the formed peroxide with more sodium. This would be bullshit economics-wise.
Use NaOH or Na2CO3, they can be directly reduced to sodium with Mg, you just need to collect the product somehow.
not_important - 24-4-2007 at 03:05
Search engines are strange and wonderous things
2nd in the hit list
http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/soda_ash/
egloskerry - 30-4-2007 at 21:04
Well, they took it off their list, so I guess I'll never find out.
not_important - 1-5-2007 at 02:50
(sigh) search engines
F-4 Feldspar
Sodium Feldspar
http://ceramic-materials.com/cermat/material/303.html
http://www.pedar.us/chemical_labels/FELDSPAR,%20KONA%20F-4.P...
egloskerry - 2-5-2007 at 09:17
I had found feldspar, but I hadn't found sodium feldspar.
not_important - 3-5-2007 at 09:47
Feldspar is the family name. modified by high content of Na, K, Li, Ca, and so on. Ceramics or pottery sites usually will list many of the variants.