Reusing of sodium silicate as a raw material in glass industry: byproduct of sodium borohydride production

Abstract

Global energy and ecology problems continue to grow because of burning of fossil fuels,environmental pollution, decrease of energy sources and difficulties in storing electricity.Hydrogen has great potential to solve these problems as an environmentally clean energycarrier and as a way to reduce reliance on imported energy sources. Hydrogen can be storedand transported safely in the form of sodium borohydride (NaBH4) due to its high theoreticalhydrogen yield by weight (10.6%) in applications where H2 gas is used, e.g., proton exchangemembrane (PEM) fuel cells. NaBH4 is synthesized from boron minerals (borax, ulexite,colemanite ... ) by the thermal-chemical reactions.The main aim of this paper is the investigation of reusing of Na2SiO3, obtained from Na8H4production based on the conversion reaction of borosilicate glass, as a raw material in glassindustry. The by-product, was defined as Na2SiO3 (PDF number: 00-016 -0818) by XRD (XRay Diffractometer) technique, was then vitrificated into a glass for utilization. The obtainedglass was characterized by scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive spectroscopy(SEM/EDS) analysis and FT-IR (Fourier Transformer-Infrared spectroscopy) techniques. Theresults show that by-product Na2SiO3 can be reused as a raw material in glass industry.