Abstract
Background: Amorphous silica is widely used in cement and ceramic industry and also for the synthesis of many advanced materials.
Method: Generally, it is produced using sol-gel and precipitation method. In the present study, amorphous SiO2 was extracted from acidic pumice collected from Van Basin in Turkey by alkaline treatment method.
Result: The identification and chemical compositions of the acidic pumice and the amorphous SiO2 were determined by XRD, FTIR, XRF and BET.
Conclusion: The results showed that highly pure amorphous silica powder having a remarkable surface area (358 m2/g) with meso-pore structure was successfully extracted from the acidic pumice samples.
Keywords: Amorphous SiO2, Pumice, meso-pore, alkaline treatment, Van Pumice, silica gel.
Graphical Abstract
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