Environmentally friendly dehumidifying product using silica extracted from bamboo leaves

Abstract

Silica is an amorphous and nanometer scale voids and porous form of silicon dioxide. As long known for its high specific surface area, synthetic silica has been used to adsorb water readily and applied for keeping many biological products dry, protecting equipment from moisture damage. In the study, the researchers have interested in making the tentative eco-friendly dehumidifying products based on the silica extract from bamboo leaves. The extraction procedures were performed by boiling dry bamboo leaves with various concentrated hydrochloric acid (HCl) at 1, 2, 3, and 4 M, then burning them at 650oC for 4 hr before analyzing the purity of the biosilica with the X-ray Fluorescence Method. The results showed that the highest purity of the biosilica sample at 96% could be obtained after treated with 4 M HCl, comparing with the control commercial silica. By hygroscopic test, the extracted biosilica with 2 M HCl showed the highest moisture absorption properties close to the commercial silica. While the highest adsorption capacity was found in the biosilica sample treated with 3 M HCl. The dehumidifying efficiencies of all HCl treated biosilica power were not much different, comparing to the commercial silica gel. Instead of using synthetic silica, therefore, this high environmentally friendly and cheaper biosilica from bamboo leaves can preferably be decent and further applied in green industry.