From: "Mel Bartels" 
To: "Atm-US \(E-mail\)" 
Reply-To: "Mel Bartels" 


>>>
just guessing here: the bonding solution could be some form of water-glass,
an aqueous solution of alkali-silicate (the stuff that's used for that
"chemical garden" experiment).

Priming and activating would then maybe mean to threat the glass surface
with a strong, possibly oxidising acid to get rid of any fatty residues and
other organic junk sticking to the surface and to protonate (stick H+ ions
to) the surface oxygen atoms. Prepared in that way they can hopefully
polymerise with the silicate ions and they in turn with each other and the
other surface.
<<<

So presumably the alkali-silicate acts to reform the exposed glass surfaces
into a single piece of glass?  Are there any examples of this?  I scanned
through a few webpages of theses and abstracts about alkali silicate but
didn't find anything concrete (bad pun since apparently alkali silicate and
concrete have a history ) about how to go about this, or if there
are any commercial instances of this in the form of aquarium glue.

Mel Bartels

--- BBBS/NT v4.00 MP