Recycling and utilization of agro-food waste ashes: syntheses of the glasses for wide-band gap semiconductor applications

Abstract

Present glasses are synthesized by the melt-quench method. The ashes of rice husk and sugarcane leaves are taken to synthesize the present samples. The eggshell powder is used to modify the glass-network and reduced the melting temperature of rice husk ash and sugarcane leaves ash. The as-quenched samples are characterized using different experimental techniques to study their structural and optical properties. The optical band gaps are found in the insulating range, i. e. 3.34–3.72 eV. The as-prepared glasses showed good luminescent properties due to some trace transition elements oxides present in the agro-food wastes. The agro-food wastes could be used as a resource and valuable materials to synthesize value-added engineering materials like glasses. The addition of eggshell powder into the main content showed the blue shift in photoluminescence spectra with enhanced intensity. This property may be exploited to develop UV–visible light-emitting diodes and some other non-linear optical devices.