Short-period synthesis of high specific surface area silica from rice husk char

摘要

Porous silica with high specific surface areas is prepared from rice husk char within a short period by avoiding the commonly used hydrothermal treatment step and using polyethylene glycol (PEG, molecular weight = 20,000) as a template. The preparation process mainly involves sodium silicate production, precipitation with ortho-phosphoric acid, and calcination. The amount of used PEG significantly affects the silica textural properties like the specific surface area, total pore volume and mesopore volume. The reason should be attributed to the amount of PEG removed from the PEG-silica composites by calcination. By varying the PEG dosage from 100 to 176 mg, porous silica with specific surface areas ranging from 709 to 936 m2/g could be successfully prepared within 10 h.