Extraction and Characterization of Silicon Dioxide from Rice Straw

Abstract

Study of silicon dioxide (silica) extraction from biomass has been successfully done. The biomass used in this study is rice straw. That is one of the rice production waste. Rice straw burning method at initial temperature of 400°C to 900°C with heating rate of 1.7s for 2 hours. Then rice straw ash washed by hydrochloric acid (HCl) with a concentration of 3% to remove the impurities. Last, that was burned at 900°C at a rate of 1.7 for 1 hour to obtain silica in crystalline form. The resulting silica samples were compared by commercial silica with purity of 99.95%. Based on FTIR characterization data of rice straw silica has a functional group representing the formation of SiO2 compound, that is at 483.39cm−1, 789.41cm−1, and 1095.65cm−1 wavenumber. According to the XRD results also have shown the pattern of crystalline diffraction with crystallinity percentage of 80.40%. The result of the characterization is similar to the pattern shown by the commercial silica used as the comparison. Although this method has succeeded in forming silicon dioxide, but the final result is very dense powder, so it difficult to crush. Therefore, further study is needed to find the most optimal temperature. The characterization also necessary to determine the purity of rice straw silicon dioxide.