SILICA

Silica is a simple chemical compound which consists of Silicon dioxide which is widely used in
various sectors on the other and the demand for silica is increasing day by day, with the expected
compound annual growth rate[CARP] of 5% during 2020-24 in India. The demand for various
silica types has increased owing the production of innovative products. Its application in the
manufacturing of coating , cosmetics sealants , adhesives, food additives, inks, toner, glass ,
ceramics and deformers are fuelling the expansion of market. The end users industries of
automation and construction are contributing in a major way to the market’s development. The
cost effective nature of silica as a component of various products led to accelerated growth pace
of the market. Even though the silica is abundant in the earth’s crust, mining and manufacturing
of pure silica is energy intensive. A variety of industrial process, involving conventional raw
materials like quartz sand require a high furnace temperatures of more than 700 degree C. The
mining of silica causes severe ecological imbalances and pollution. However, the rapid depletion
of sand reverses forces us to go for alternatives.

Process
In our Project, a simple chemical process is described which the raw materials used are rice husk,
wheat straw and bagasse for extraction of silica . A generalised procedure is identified to extract
silica from the agriculture waste. It includes these basic steps

Step one – ACID TREATMENT - where we Treating the agriculture waste with 1N HCl(hydro
chloric) acid. It is done to remove metallic impurities thereby increasing the quality of silica
product .

microwave digestion( a process

Step 2 : Obtaining ash form these pre-treated wastes by
used to dissolve heavy metals in the presence organic molecules ) followed by
calcinations( heating of solids to a high temperatue for the purpose of
removing volatile substances) . Optimal parameters being 700 degrees Celsius
temperature and the duration of calcination is 2 hours. This results in the maximum production
of amorphous silica with very little to no traces of non-reactive crystalline silica.

Step 3: The obtained ash should be subjected to the sol-gel method, where
we add NaOH
solution , and then it is neutralized with HCl, to obtain the gels
formation. Then the gels are left for aging( process in which undesirable change in
its chemical and physical structure under specific environment conditions ).
The temperature is in the range of 80-90ºC and pressure is the normal atmospheric pressure and
addition of sulphuric acid is done very slowly until acidic conditions are reached. Results in
formation of silica gel.

Step 4; Then the gels are left for aging The aged gels should be washed repeatedly with
demineralized water for removal of sulphate impurities. Then they should be dried using
vacuum pump and centrifuged to produce Xerogels ( a type of solid formed gels ). The obtained
product should be dried in the oven to obtain the commercial grade silica that is amorphous
silica powder.
Sodium sulphate is the by-product which can be used as a drying agent for organic liquids, As a
filler in powdered home laundry detergents ,and as a fining agent which removes small air
bubbles from molte

The obtained silica is used in the manufacturing of coating , cosmetics sealants , adhesives, food
additives, inks, toner, glass , ceramics and deformers are fuelling the expansion of market.