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Water glass from recycled fiberglass

The lack of fiberglass recycling leads to abandoned boats, but using Michigan's salt enables new recycling techniques.

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www.carbonfreeearth.com
Water glass from recycled fiberglass

About this idea

Cabon Free Earth proposes a new way to make eco-friendly detergents and geochemical activator for eco-cement: low-temperature solvolysis of abandoned boats and even decommissioned wind turbine blades. These sodium metasilicates are made from combining activated silica with sodium hydroxide and wastewater. These everyday chemical materials are presently manufactured overseas by heating silica-quartz sand in kilns to over 2,500 degrees. Because the silica in recovered fiberglass is already activated, we can make sodium metasilicates at temperatures below 500 degrees, saving energy and CO2. This process uses acids and bases generated by Michigan-produced salts to digest epoxy resins in the fiberglass, turning the remaining silica into hydradated sodium metasilicates, known as water-glass.