Top 4 Reasons why Rice Husk Ash and Hull Ash is more than a waste product!

Michellle Jones
3 min readSep 11, 2017

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Rice is the number one diet among the leading populated countries of the world. During the process of separating rice from their grains, the outer layer of it is what you know as the Rice Husk or Hull. The countries of Asia alone produce approximately 800 million tons of Rice Husk on a yearly basis. Earlier, people used to consider the Husk as just a waste product that needed to be disposed when required to. However, many countries all over the world have stopped considering it as waste product as they have discovered uses for it, in some way or the other.

Rice Husk Ash

Rice Husk is used as fuel in different applications, such as generating power or as fuel for paddy-processing boilers. Such processes release rice husk ash which makes up for around 1/4th of the total weight of husk burnt. Disposing this hull ash as a waste product would be really damaging to our environment, whether on land or in water. Instead of just disposing them, people have come up with real-world applications for Rice Hull Ash instead.

Here are 4 reasons why Rice Husk Ash is more than just a waste product:

1) Rice husk ash contains approximately 80 to 90% of amorphous silica. Micro Silica or Silica fume is imported from the countries China, Norway, etc for use in India. The cost of silica fumes has risen steadily due to an imbalance in supply and demand. However, you can now use organic or amorphous silica that you can manufacture from this ash for any particular need of yours.

2) Another important use of this rice hull ash is that it is highly reactive and has a pozzolanic property. As a result, you can use them in making concrete mixes without needing any special reactive agent instead. The silica found in it has a lot of scope for use in making strong concrete, either high performance or permeable, bridges, power plants, etc.

3) Rice husk ash is a very good and efficient supplementary binder. You can use it while mixing cement for its reactive nature. Once mixed with cement paste, it becomes active. As a result, anyone can use this cheaper alternative to use in any cement usage in constructions, saving money and time on artificial materials.

4) The property of this ash can be manipulated to suit the quality you may require of any construction or cement application. For instance, you can make it to become a good insulator. It can be made to absorb any oil spills on it. One can use hull ash for making any structure fire resistant or water resistant, and other such applications.

Therefore, you can see that rice husk ash, which we obtain from the burning of rice hulls and husks, is much more than just a waste product. These are the top 4 reasons why you can safely assume that husk ash has real-world applications and not simply an after product to be disposed of as any other waste byproduct.

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Michellle Jones

Hello! My name is Michellle Jones and I am constantly writing the way I think. I am always trying to learn as much as possible from all over the world.