Agricultural byproducts used as alternate energy sources generate considerable waste. Harvested rice is milled producing rice hulls that are often burned to generate electricity also producing rice hull ash (RHA). In the U.S. some 100k tons of RHA are produced annually. RHA consists of 70-90 wt % low impurity, high surface area (20 m2/g) amorphous, porous silica mixed with low impurity, amorphous carbon.The rice plant does not extract heavy metals from the ground and as such the resulting RHA is relatively pure. Furthermore, it is very easily purified using simple acid extraction to remove small amounts of phosphates and alumina. We have developed several methods of extracting this silica to produce a wide variety of products including high purity precipitated silica and several silane products. Furthermore, the resulting silica depleted RHA or SDRHA has C:SiO2ratios of value for electric arc furnace processing of silicon metal. We describe route to 5-6 nines purity silicon with costs that are 30 % of traditional chlorosilane processing costs.Superhydrophobic polymer coating on low density silica

Conversion of biowaste silica to value added Si based materials including polymers and high purity silicon

245th National Meeting (2013)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.