New scientific achievement: they produce LED lights from rice husk waste

Recycling and making use of waste is an imperative need. Therefore, scientists look for how to get the most out of them. This idea led several experts to explore what could be done with the environment. 100 million tons of rice husk waste is produced every year in the world when separating the grain. A team of Japanese researchers has developed a way to recycle rice husks to create the first silicon quantum dot (QD) LED light.. A finding that received unanimous applause from the scientific community.

This new method transforms agricultural waste into state-of-the-art light-emitting diodes in an economical and environmentally friendly wayAs described by the research team of the Hiroshima University Center for Natural Sciences Basic Research and Development in the American Chemical Society’s journal ‘ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering’.

“The toxicity of nanomaterials and environmental concerns inspired us to develop a scalable method to produce quantum dots with a positive environmental impact,” the researchers report. Rice milling residues are “an excellent source of high-quality silica (silicon dioxide, SiO2) and value-added silicon (Si) powders.” They emphasize that 20% of the weight of this waste is silicon dioxide.

The study authors explain that they synthesized silicon dioxide, porous silicon, and silicon quantum dots from rice husks. traditional chemical synthesis method and investigated its structural, optical, and optoelectric properties. The extraction yields of SiO2 and silica powders from rice husks are 100% and 86%, respectively. The final product results in an orange-red electroluminescence..

environmental concerns

“given typical quantum dots often contain toxic materialEnvironmental concerns have often been discussed when using nanomaterials, such as cadmium, lead or other heavy metals. Our proposed process and manufacturing method for QDs minimizes these concerns, said Ken-ichi Saitow, professor of chemistry at Hiroshima University and lead author of the study.

Rice hulls. pixabay


Since porous silicon was discovered in the 1950s, scientists have explored its uses for applications in lithium-ion batteries, luminescent materials, biomedical sensors and drug delivery systems. Silicon, non-toxic and abundant in nature, has photoluminescent propertiesderived from microscopic (quantum-sized) dot structures that serve as semiconductors.

Aware of the environmental concerns surrounding existing QDs due to the toxicity of the nanomaterials used and their impact on the environment, Researchers have set out to find a new method of generating quantum dots that will have a positive environmental impact.. They found the solution in the rice husk.

The researchers used a combination of grinding, heat treatments and chemical etching to process the silica from the rice husk. First, they grind the husks and remove the silica powders by burning the organic compounds in the ground husks.

Second, they heated the resulting silica powder in an electric furnace to obtain silica powder via a reduction reaction. Third, the product was a purified silica powder that was further reduced to three nanometers by chemical etching.

The surface of the powder was then chemically treated and finally produced silica quantum dots that glow in the orange-red range. High luminescence efficiency of more than 20%.

“An attractive alternative”

“This is the first research to develop an LED from waste rice husks,” said Saitow. The fact that silicon is non-toxic makes it a “Attractive Alternative” to Existing Semiconductor Quantum Dots Available Today by Developing “Eco-Friendly” QD LEDs From Natural Productspointed.

“By synthesizing high-yield silica quantum dots from rich shells and dispersing them in organic solvents, It is possible one day to implement these processes on a large scale.like other high-performance chemical processes,” Saitow said.

Rice field. pixabay


The research team has already announced its next steps, which include developing higher efficiency luminescence in silica quantum dots and LEDs. Moreover Explore the possibility of producing silica quantum dot LEDs out of red-orange they just created.

looking to the future, The scientists believe the method they developed could be applied to other plants such as sugarcane, bamboo, wheat, barley or grass.containing silicon dioxide. These natural products and their waste may also have the potential to be converted into non-toxic optoelectronic devices.

The scientists said they would like to see their eco-friendly approach to creating luminescent devices from rice husk waste commercialized.

Reference report: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acssuschemeng.1c04985

Source: Informacion

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