Synthesis and Characterization of Bimodal Mesoporous Silica Derived from Rice Husk Ash

Abstract

Bimodal mesoporous silica (BMS) was obtained by synthesizing a silica derived from rice husk ash (RHA) with the structure-directing agents (Pluronic P123 and CTAB) using the sol-gel technique. RHA from biomass power plant was extracted with NaOH. The characteristic of BMS, UMS-P123, UMS-CTAB and RHS were performed with XRD, FT-IR, XRF, N2 adsorption-desorption isotherm, SEM and TEM techniques. As the result, BMS with large mesopore were obtained from the material like SBA-15 which are the dominant characteristic of Pluronic P123, and incorporated of CTAB, which the small mesopore were original from the parent templates. BMS shows higher specific surface area (>700 m2/g) pore volume (1.30 cm3/g) and pore size (9.20 nm) than the unimodal mesoporous silica (UMS-P123 and UMS-CTAB). Therefore, BMS synthesized from rice husk ash had the excellent material that could find the applications in adsorbent and also gave environmental benefits and renewable resource.