Formation of silica from TEOS Usually tetraethyl orthosilicate/tetraethoxy silane (TEOS) is mixed with both ethanol and water to produce silica in a sol-gel process. I am curious what happens if one adds TEOS to water at a high pH, without any alcohol. Would TEOS simply not mix and not react with water? Or it would hydrolyze too rapidly and not condense at all?
It depends. if your pH is really high, silicate $\ce{SiO3^2-}$ or $\ce{SiO4^4-}$ ions will form and will become a stable dissolved solute in the solution. if it is moderately high the rate of hydrolysis will increase greatly and the silicon will crash out in the form of orthosilicate hydrates [$\ce{Si(OH)4}$], which may agglomerate to form silica particles. These results are a bit of a spectrum and there is no pH limit where the reaction gives a binary change in result, as it is also sensitive to extrinsic properties of the solution such as the amount of base.