Development of high purity amorphous silica from emulsifier silicon by pyrolysis process at temperature of 700 oC

Abstract

Abstract Silica in amorphous form is one of the fillers that is indispensable for the industrial world, especially for the superior material industry. Amorphous silica in the form of cristobalite compounds are inert, soft, and have high porosity which is suitable to be used as certain filler materials. This research describes about the characterization of amorphous silica produced from the pyrolysis process of emulsifier silicon. The pyrolysis process was carried out in three-stages, starting from the separation of water, separation of the emulsifier material from silica compound at a temperature of 300oC followed by pyrolysis at a temperature of 700 oC. In this process, amorphous silica and carbon are formed at the end of the pyrolysis process. In this study, characterization was carried out using XRD to determine the phase of the composition of the compound, SEM EDX to determine the morphology, and XRF analysis to determine the purity of product composition. The results of the XRD shows that the amorphous silica formed. SEM-EDX analysis shows that the amorphous silica has spherical fine grain with average particle size 0.30006 ± 0.01722 |am. It was supported by XRF analysis that shows that the amorphous silica has SiO2 content 99,92%.