Reduction of silicon dioxide from bamboo leaves and its analysis using energy dispersive x-ray and fourier transform-infrared

Silicon dioxide or silica from the organic materials such as bamboo leaf ash (BLA) was interesting because of its large content of 76-80% and it was the main ingredient in glass and solar cell industries. The objective was to study the effect of temperature rate and the acid leaching to silica content in bamboo leaves. This study consists of two main stages, namely 1) ashing the leaves which was conducted through burning the dry leaves and ashing the bamboo leaves charcoal with temperature rates of 0.3, 0.4, and 0.5 °C/min, and 2) reducting the silica which was conducted through leaching the ash with HCl 3% and then heating in a furnace. The results showed that BLA has a yield of 18.10 - 18.64% to dried bamboo leaves. Silica at rates of 0.3, 0.4, and 0.5 °C/min resulted in purity levels of 65.85, 74.49, and 72.69%, respectively. Silica still contained a low percentage impurities, namely rubidium oxide, aluminum oxide, and iron oxide. In addition, FTIR analysis showed that the silica rates of 0.3, 0.4, and 0.5 °C/min have absorption band at wave numbers of 1095 cm−1, 802 cm−1 and 455-463 cm−1 which indicated the asymmetric stretching vibration and bending vibration Si-O of siloxane groups (Si-O-Si) with force constant of 1030.531 N.m−1.