High Performance Bioderived Hybrid Fillers for Rubber Composite Production (LP200200965)

This project aims to produce sustainable high performance silica from rice husks for rubber and polymer composite applications.  A biorefinery approach will be developed to fractionate rice husks into fermentable sugars, reactive lignin and functional silica. Sugars and lignin can be further upgraded to valuable biofuels, biochemicals and/biopolymers using chemical and/or biological approaches.  Silica will be used as sustainable silica fillers for manufacturing rubber and polymer composites with properties comparable or superior to those containing commercial silica fillers derived from non-renewable quartz sand.