Low-Cost, Energy-Efficient Technology Distills Silica from Sand

Richard Laine, an engineering professor at the University of Michigan, has developed an inexpensive way to transform common silica into chemicals that can be used in many commercial applications, such a fireproofing and waterproofing wood, and creating fibers that have potential value in multiple products. This technology is significant because it not only taps a substance (silica) that makes up nearly 25 percent of the Earth's mineral content, but also recycles vast amounts of waste products, simplifies production, saves energy, and removes toxins from the environment.

Transcript

00:00:01 carbon makes up .1% of the mineral content of the Earth's surface silica is closer to 25% so if you could develop commercial roots that use Silica or sand then there's a great cost savings we have been interested in deep lizing silica from sand as a mechanism to make silicon containing chemicals that are low cost and could be used to replace or even to complement carbon based

00:00:32 materials we have been experimenting with a wide number of dials and ethylene glycol and the other kinds of dials that we can get some of them are like sugars okay will'll dissolve silica and we can distill over the silica compound so that's the new discovery is we actually have found a way to separate the silica by distillation because you can distill it it's like everything you can distill

00:00:55 you can make it very much higher Purity but it's so low cost that we can actually take the distillate and we can actually use it spray it on wood and petrify wood let's say my deck has just been refinished if I can put silicon compounds into my deck a I can waterproof it at the same time I can make it fire resistant it's not

00:01:17 completely fireproof so the question of whether you can do this is a simple question of whether it's costeffective can I do it in place of the other materials the other deck Coatings and con sealers that are out there and we think we can do that the wood is filled with silica particles very finely divided and that's what provides the heat protection and

00:01:40 that's what we call petrification it's not the way real petrification occurs because that's a very slow process over hundreds if not thousands of years okay we're doing it instantly it turns out that the best silica to dissolve is that which is a higher surface because it reacts faster so what kinds of high surface area silica are available well dious Earth is

00:02:08 available and we also can use rice H as every year there are a 100,000 tons of rice H as at least produced in the United States alone so you are taking something that is a waste product recycling this into a valuable commercial product you can make fibers from Silicon based materials you can make Fabrics it'll save energy okay it will simplify processes it will remove

00:02:37 some toxic chemicals from the environment this is the first step in perhaps changing how all of silicon chemistry is done