Potential Application of Palm Ash as a Raw Materials in Production of Green Glass Noorina Hidayu Jamil, Mohd Mustafa Al-Bakri Abdullah, Faizul Che Pa, Ruhiyuddin Mohd Zaki, Murizam Darus, Che Mohd Ruzaidi Ghazali, Mohamed Faisol Mohamed Nor School of Materials Engineering, Universiti Malaysia Perlis, Kompleks Pusat Pengajian Jejawi 2, 02600 Arau, Perlis. noorinahidayu@unimap.edu.my Keywords: Glass, palm ash, agricultural waste Abstract. Oil Palm Ash is one of the abundance agricultural wastes found in Malaysia. This wastes need to be disposed properly. Oil palm ash contains compounds needed to produce glass. Most of raw materials (especially silica) used to produce existing commercial glass are imported; therefore it is the best time to highlight the potential of local natural waste as the raw material in glass production. In this study, raw material characterization, glass production and glass product evaluation has been done. A few parameters have been recognized to have effect on green glass production such as mixing compositions and firing temperature. Oil palm ash has been washed and dried then sieved to get uniformity of particle size. Then, oil palm ash is mixed with other glass materials such as alumina and flux and undergone melting process at 1400 0 C. Through the experiments, the best glass compositions are as follows: 80% palm ash, 10% kaolin and 10% feldspar or 10% dolomite while the suitable temperature being used for sintering process to produced end product is range between 1150°C to 1200°. INTRODUCTION A large quantity of agricultural waste such as palm ash and rice husk ash were found in Malaysia. These waste are needed to be disposed properly, otherwise it may cause a major environmental sustainable issue. Generally, there is about 30 million tons of oil palm ash biomass is produced annually in Malaysia (Shamsu Mohamad, 2008). Solid waste of palm oil industry such as empty fruit bunches is being used in palm oil mills as boiler fuel to produce steam for electricity generation. The large appearance of the ash produced after combustion creates a disposal problem for the palm oil industry. Since open field or pile burning is increasingly being banned because of the air pollution problem, empty fruit bunch is barely used and creates problem associated with its disposal. Therefore, another option for disposing them is needed. Considering the utilization of the waste, the development of glass and glass-ceramics from waste materials like agricultural and power plant had been studied seriously in the west (Radzali, 2011 and Yoon, 2005). This study explored the potential of palm ash as one of the glass ingredient since there is existence of silica and flux composition needed to form glass. Glass is a hard, brittle, noncrystalline, more or less transparent substance produced by fusion, usually consisting of mutually dissolved silica and silicates that also contain soda and lime. The glass can be transparent or matte. MATERIALS AND METHODS The raw materials that used for preparation of the glass were oil palm ash, kaolin (Al 2 Si 2 O 5 (OH) 4 ), and feldspar (K(Na)AlSi 3 O 8 ) or dolomite (CaMg(CO 3 )). In this research, oil palm ash act as silica and flux sources, kaolin act as alumina source while feldspar and dolomite will act Advanced Materials Research Vol. 626 (2013) pp 1006-1009 Online available since 2012/Dec/27 at www.scientific.net © (2013) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland doi:10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.626.1006 All rights reserved. No part of contents of this paper may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of TTP, www.ttp.net. (ID: 60.50.122.196, Universiti Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP), Arau, Malaysia-30/07/13,12:35:55)