Green technology extraction and characterisationof silica nanoparticles from palm kernel shell ashvia sol-gel

Silica nanoparticles have numerous applications including drug delivery, lightweight aggre-gates, and energy storage. It has been manufactured from different agricultural bioresourceswith limited research on palm kernel shell ash (PKSA). This study produced silica nanoparti-cles from palm kernel shell ash. Modified sol-gel extraction technique was used to producethe silica nanoparticles from PKSA. The extracted silica nanoparticles were characterizedusing X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning electron microscope (SEM) with Energy dispersiveX-ray (EDX), Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) techniques, Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET)method and Thermogravimetric analysis (TG). The microstructural analysis reveals that theunit size of the extracted silica nanoparticles is between 50-98 nm, with a very high specificsurface area (438 m²g^-1). EDX confirmed the presence of SiO2in the sample. FT-IR analysisshows the existence of silanol and siloxane groups. This success means, decrease in envi-ronmental contamination caused by indiscriminate disposal of palm kernel shell (PKS) andsilica nanoparticles for advanced material applications.