Silica Extraction from Palm Oil Fuel Ash

Abstract

Palm Oil Fuel Ash (POFA), a discarded agriculture industrial wastes that accumulated at oil palm industrial sites have been utilised for the extraction of silica (Si02). Si02, extracted from POFA, is a hard and useful substance which can be primarily applied for the manufacturing of composite materials to achieve high strength properties. It is reported that POF A is quite abundant in Malaysia and it contains relatively high percentage of silica content compared to other comparable industrial wastes. This paper describes the methodology of extraction of silica from POFA. The methodology of extraction of silica from rice husk ash (RHA) was adopted with minor modifications in order to extract silica from POFA in laboratory scale. The extracted silica was examined using XRD and FTIR. Further research and experimentations are proposed to be carried out in order to extract valuable nano-silica from POFA.