Abstract
Amorphous silica, a specialised silicate adsorbent is extensively extracted from agricultural residues for application in various environmental domains. Wheat straws are a rich source of silica that have earlier been overlooked however demand for value addition. The study presents an innovative approach to extracting silica from wheat straw and standardising the extraction process to produce clean product. The sodium silicate solution and the amorphous silica synthesis were obtained by modifying the template mediated sol–gel method. Optimum temperature, concentration and pH were identified for the cleaner production of silica with maximum yield and favourable adsorbent characteristics. The crystallographic properties analysed by the X-Ray Diffraction revealed the amorphous nature of silica extracted from ash at 650 °C for 4 h. The structure of phytolith present in the wheat straw was observed in the form of articulated elongate undulate epidermal phytolith under scanning electron microscopy. The Energy Dispersive X-ray spectrum exhibited higher amount of silica (Si %) of 70.10% with a minimal percentage of potassium (9.96%). The sharp bend at 1025 cm−1 is attributed to the siloxane (Si–O-Si) vibrations in Fourier transform infrared spectroscopic graph of amorphous silica. The specific surface area measurements of amorphous silica showed type II isotherm curve with a hysteresis of H3 type. The optimum conditions derived to produce amorphous silica were 3 M NaOH and 3 M H2SO4 at pH 9.
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Acknowledgements
We are very grateful to Cranfield University, United Kingdom for granting visiting fellowship and provision of the laboratory used for this research. Our sincere appreciation for the support and facilitation by Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, India. The fantastic support provided by the technicians (Cristinel Putinica, Nuannat Simmons, Richard Andrews, Paul Barton, Christine Kimpton, Diane Johnson) at Cranfield University is also very appreciated by the authors.
Funding
The authors wish to thank the support of the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission, United Kingdom [No.INCN-2021–118] and the Department of Science and Technology (DST-SERB), New Delhi, India [No.DST/INSPIRE/03/2021/001372] for the research funding.
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Sangeetha Ramasamy: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Validation, Visualization, Writing—original draft. Ruben Sakrabani: Conceptualisation, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – Review & Editing, Funding acquisition, Project administration, Resources, Supervision. Sadish Oumabady: Investigation, Writing—original draft. Davamani Veeraswamy, Parameswari Ettiyagounder, Lakshmanan Arunachalam, Sivakumar Senjeriputhur Devaraj, Kadirvelu Krishna: Writing – review & editing.
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Ramasamy, S.P., Veeraswamy, D., Ettiyagounder, P. et al. New Insights Into Method Development and Characterization of Amorphous Silica From Wheat Straw. Silicon 15, 5049–5063 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12633-023-02396-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12633-023-02396-5