clorenzetti Posted April 7, 2020 Report Share Posted April 7, 2020 Hi guys - Like the title says I'm trying to substitute Lithium Carbonate in my glaze for another material because it's so expensive. I have read that an alternative could possibly be Spodumene, but from what I can see it's got about 1/5 the amount of Lithium than the carbonate form. I've set up a comparison in digital fire, but at this point I'm not sure what the best way is to proceed with testing, maybe someone with more experience can give some insight.. From the digital fire reference: Quote Spodumene is only slightly soluble (in contrast to lithium carbonate). Because spodumene is a natural combination of silica, alumina and lithia it melts better than a chemically equivalent mixture of lithium carbonate, kaolin and silica. Since almost all raw glazes contain kaolin and silica it is normally fairly easy to juggle recipe ingredients in a ceramic chemistry calculation program to introduce spodumene to replace lithium carbonate. Spodumene can also be substituted for part of the feldspar complement in a recipe without disturbing overall chemistry too much (other than substituting Li2O for KNaO). Thanks very much ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Babs Posted April 7, 2020 Report Share Posted April 7, 2020 No chemist here but why are your percentages listed different to amoubrs when the amounts are totalling 100? Nithing to do with your query I know but just asking Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pres Posted April 7, 2020 Report Share Posted April 7, 2020 I'm not a chemist with glazes either, but when I compare the two glaze formulas, I notice that the Lithium is way low in the glaze with the Spodumene. If you compare many of the other values you find KNaO to be higher in your Spodumene glaze. I would think that these changes will make major differences in the glaze. Also notice the difference in you Ti, which can be remedied by adding less of you opacifier. To test this, I would consider standing test tiles, with the top 1/2 glazed, and put the whole set of test tiles on a waster. . . an old partial broken shelf, or a clay slab. IMHO best, Pres Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neilestrick Posted April 7, 2020 Report Share Posted April 7, 2020 I'm not finding a way to get enough spodumene in there to fulfill the lithium requirements without messing up everything else. Maybe someone else will come up with a way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark C. Posted April 7, 2020 Report Share Posted April 7, 2020 Welcome to electric cars-batteries and cell phone demand-thay all use our glaze products-they all drive up the prices looks like its $18 a # here https://shop.clay-planet.com/lithium-carbonate.aspx I suggest just paying the price as its' cheaper than cobalt and Tin You can use less but you are best with some in your glaze. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clorenzetti Posted April 7, 2020 Author Report Share Posted April 7, 2020 19 minutes ago, neilestrick said: I'm not finding a way to get enough spodumene in there to fulfill the lithium requirements without messing up everything else. Maybe someone else will come up with a way. Thanks for trying, appreciate it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clorenzetti Posted April 7, 2020 Author Report Share Posted April 7, 2020 8 minutes ago, Mark C. said: Welcome to electric cars-batteries and cell phone demand-thay all use our glaze products-they all drive up the prices looks like its $18 a # here https://shop.clay-planet.com/lithium-carbonate.aspx I suggest just paying the price as its' cheaper than cobalt and Tin You can use less but you are best with some in your glaze. Actually I'm based in the Netherlands so this is the price I'm looking at : https://www.keramikos.nl/chemicalien/410-lithium-carbonaat-500-gram.html?search_query=lithium+carbonate&results=9 --it seems it's roughly equivalent with the currency conversion... Thanks for your reference though I will look into their shipping options. It looks like from the site you posted it's 60$ per lb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark C. Posted April 7, 2020 Report Share Posted April 7, 2020 Well I just googled it-never looked beyound the 1st hit. I tend to have larger quainities of materials myself. Many ceramic material suppliers are closed down now with the virus so supply will be an issue. I'm 100% out of touch with European suppliers but your options most likely are better on your side of the pond -shipping as far as I know is only cheap to the UK via Royal Mail -shipping elsewhere is spendy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Min Posted April 7, 2020 Report Share Posted April 7, 2020 My biggest issue with this glaze is how much lithium it has in it. VC Matte with 8.9% lithium carb could very well lead to shivering. Lithia is a funny material, you can get both crazing and shivering with high lithia glazes like that one. That being said I took a go at altering the recipe but I really don't like the glaze I came up with. I had to replace all the nepheline syenite because it was oversupplying the alumina content of the glaze. I replaced the sodium and potassium with Ferro Frit 3110 (don't know if that is available where you live?). Even when I removed all the added silica the silica level is still higher than the original as it's being supplied by the Ferro Frit 3110 and spodumene and gerstley borate. Sodium and potassium levels are different but the overall KNaO is pretty close. This version will sink like a stone in the bucket since I had to remove all the kaolin (or else oversupplied silica even more) and both spodumene and the frit are heavy sinking materials. The 8 bentonite might make it useable but I still don't care for this glaze. Original on the left, my version on the right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glazenerd Posted April 7, 2020 Report Share Posted April 7, 2020 Lithium carbonate is 40% lithium and spodumene is only 7-8% lithium. No way to adjust for that large differential. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hulk Posted April 7, 2020 Report Share Posted April 7, 2020 Hi Carlo! A bit of lithium goes a looong way, per my reading - am still mulling over recipes for cone six clear remediation (crazing) with lithium; I'm choosing petalite, as I wish to avoid bubbly/soapy spodumene and lithium carbonate solubility issues (read up on them issues!!). Have to decide soon tho', as next bisque fire is this week! For mid range (I'm aiming for cone 6), over 2% lithium probably not ok; my first trials will contain much less... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clorenzetti Posted April 7, 2020 Author Report Share Posted April 7, 2020 10 minutes ago, Min said: My biggest issue with this glaze is how much lithium it has in it. VC Matte with 8.9% lithium carb could very well lead to shivering. Lithia is a funny material, you can get both crazing and shivering with high lithia glazes like that one. That being said I took a go at altering the recipe but I really don't like the glaze I came up with. I had to replace all the nepheline syenite because it was oversupplying the alumina content of the glaze. I replaced the sodium and potassium with Ferro Frit 3110 (don't know if that is available where you live?). Even when I removed all the added silica the silica level is still higher than the original as it's being supplied by the Ferro Frit 3110 and spodumene and gerstley borate. Sodium and potassium levels are different but the overall KNaO is pretty close. This version will sink like a stone in the bucket since I had to remove all the kaolin (or else oversupplied silica even more) and both spodumene and the frit are heavy sinking materials. The 8 bentonite might make it useable but I still don't care for this glaze. Original on the left, my version on the right. Thanks for the effort!! I have used VC Matter before with 10% titanium dioxide and I really love the results under slow cooling Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clorenzetti Posted April 7, 2020 Author Report Share Posted April 7, 2020 Also if you guys are interested here are some pictures of a piece that I used the original VC Matte with 10% titanium dioxide on: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1zNPqmY3o5s52ZhoRO73ivp7eD01KsDrV?usp=sharing Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liambesaw Posted April 7, 2020 Report Share Posted April 7, 2020 Lithium carb is 25 a pound at my local store, pretty cheap when you consider how much is used in a typical recipe. You accidentally put 8 bentonite in your recipe, would hate to see how gelled that would be, especially with 11 gerstley!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Min Posted April 7, 2020 Report Share Posted April 7, 2020 Other approach would be to reduce the lithium carb so the cost to make the glaze is less plus it would make the glaze less likely to shiver. I just used the materials in your original recipe and reduced the lithium then increased the whiting to supply some more flux to make up for the fluxing lost by reducing the lithia. High calcium glazes can make nice mattes when slow cooled so this might work. If you try it please just mix up a tiny bit of glaze to test, what looks okay on paper doesn't always translate to what works on a pot. (slight understatement!) Silica, alumina etc levels rebalanced to match original as is the silica:alumina ratio. Your original on the left, reduced lithia version on right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neilestrick Posted April 7, 2020 Report Share Posted April 7, 2020 You could also try replacing some of the lithium with dolomite, as the magnesium will also help with mattness. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Babs Posted April 7, 2020 Report Share Posted April 7, 2020 6 hours ago, clorenzetti said: Also if you guys are interested here are some pictures of a piece that I used the original VC Matte with 10% titanium dioxide on: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1zNPqmY3o5s52ZhoRO73ivp7eD01KsDrV?usp=sharing This is not unlike Alabama Rain.... Why not try a different satin matte which gives very similar results without Lithium. Lots of tried and true recipes on these forums for just that. You are not going for colours associated with Lithium so ..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liambesaw Posted April 7, 2020 Report Share Posted April 7, 2020 Another nice runny matte is behrens satin matte. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Kielb Posted April 7, 2020 Report Share Posted April 7, 2020 11 hours ago, clorenzetti said: Hi guys - Like the title says I'm trying to substitute Lithium Carbonate in my glaze for another material because it's so expensive. I have read that an alternative could possibly be Spodumene, but from what I can see it's got about 1/5 the amount of Lithium than the carbonate form. I've set up a comparison in digital fire, but at this point I'm not sure what the best way is to proceed with testing, maybe someone with more experience can give some insight.. From the digital fire reference: Thanks very much ! Since they are different concentrations they are not one to one substitutions which you no doubt realize. So some folks would pick out the qualities the glaze has that they want to maintane. Maybe you want to maintain the gloss as is, which would be indicated by the Si:al ratio of 5.6:1 which should be a matte. Along with qualities there are reasonable limits. Generally al2o3 .54 ish becomes hard to melt at cone six so 0.67 begs to be adjusted downward. So substitutions usually take clarity in what makes the original glaze good for you and a reasonable amount of knowledge about glazes. Once ya got that you begin adjusting the components of the glaze to preserve the qualities you like. so if it’s 0.32 lithium that you like then more spodumene but less of other components in an attempt to try and preserve or match the quantities of components in the original glaze. The place to start is to answer why this is the glaze for you and what qualities is lithium providing that you are trying to match. It could be color, it could be low expansion but again what is it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Kielb Posted April 7, 2020 Report Share Posted April 7, 2020 6 hours ago, clorenzetti said: Also if you guys are interested here are some pictures of a piece that I used the original VC Matte with 10% titanium dioxide on: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1zNPqmY3o5s52ZhoRO73ivp7eD01KsDrV?usp=sharing Looks glossy actually in the pictures. Lots of mid fire matte recipes that are true matte (no slow cooling needed) and you can dial in your sheen by adding more or less silica. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clorenzetti Posted April 8, 2020 Author Report Share Posted April 8, 2020 14 hours ago, liambesaw said: Lithium carb is 25 a pound at my local store, pretty cheap when you consider how much is used in a typical recipe. You accidentally put 8 bentonite in your recipe, would hate to see how gelled that would be, especially with 11 gerstley!!! Thank you for the correction! I amended the original post ^ 9 hours ago, Babs said: This is not unlike Alabama Rain.... Why not try a different satin matte which gives very similar results without Lithium. Lots of tried and true recipes on these forums for just that. You are not going for colours associated with Lithium so ..... Thanks for the suggestion! Alabama Rain looks very nice i will look into it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clorenzetti Posted April 8, 2020 Author Report Share Posted April 8, 2020 9 hours ago, Bill Kielb said: The place to start is to answer why this is the glaze for you and what qualities is lithium providing that you are trying to match. It could be color, it could be low expansion but again what is it? Thanks for your response and nice question! What exactly is it.. For me it's this reptilian like texture when the glaze is thick, it's this sort of pleated texture which is kind of difficult to photograph but here are some pictures which I think illustrates the effect: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1UpZ7uk8TrbMwZqy9bihuzKpZfM54ZOZj?usp=sharing I really like when the glaze takes on an entirely different kind of surface texture more-so than a flat tight covering over the piece. --- Thanks to everyone that has taken the time to respond here! As I test the new glazes I will update this thread to share the results! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clorenzetti Posted April 8, 2020 Author Report Share Posted April 8, 2020 13 hours ago, Min said: Other approach would be to reduce the lithium carb so the cost to make the glaze is less plus it would make the glaze less likely to shiver. I just used the materials in your original recipe and reduced the lithium then increased the whiting to supply some more flux to make up for the fluxing lost by reducing the lithia. High calcium glazes can make nice mattes when slow cooled so this might work. If you try it please just mix up a tiny bit of glaze to test, what looks okay on paper doesn't always translate to what works on a pot. (slight understatement!) Silica, alumina etc levels rebalanced to match original as is the silica:alumina ratio. Your original on the left, reduced lithia version on right. Thanks very much for this suggestion! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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