Introduction

Silica, or silicon dioxide (SiO2), is the same material found in quartz. The gel form called

silica gel contains millions of tiny pores that can adsorb and hold moisture. Silica gel is

essentially porous sand（1）. Silica gel has a chemical formula: mSiO2 • nH2O. Silica gel can’t

be dissolve in water, not soluble in other solvents except hydrofluoric acid and strong alkali.

Silica gel is mainly used for gas absorption or drying, liquid dehydration and liquid

chromatography, also used as catalysts or catalyst carrier. The textile industry uses it as sizing

agent. Pore silica gel is mainly used for the drying and purification of gas, the dehydration and

purification of organic product, also used as a supported carrier. Coarse-pore gel silica is mainly

used to process the macromolecular protein contained in the beer as well as the drying of gas and

liquid and defogging as well as dehumidification of gas upon high humidity, as the catalyst and

catalyst carrier in the petrochemical industry. Discoloration gel is mainly used to indicate the

relative humidity of airtight packaging, precision instruments and the inner space of instrument

as well as being used for the moisture proof maintenance of precision instrumentation. （2）In

the United States, silica gel is commonly used in food and pharmaceutical applications as only

silica gel has been approved by the FDA for direct contact with these items.（3）Because silica

is made up of sand, it may contains impurities during manufacture of silica gel and affect the

quality in adsorption of water. Hence, the objective of the experiment is to synthesis pure silicon

dioxide and to investigate the quality in adsorption of prepared silica gel and conventional silica

gel.