Iranian Researchers Produce Natural Catalysts from Rice Husk Derivatives

“For the first time, we obtained catalysts from rice husk and rice husk derivatives and of course rice husk derivatives such as rice husk ash modified with types of iron and titanium,” said Farhad Shirini, who is a chemistry professor at the Gilan University and a distinguished researcher an award winner at the Khwarizmi International Award.

“Because rice husk and its derivatives accelerate chemical reactions and reduce the synthesis time in the laboratory, we chose it,” Shirini said.

He noted that natural catalysts have been widely used in recent years because they are not expensive as their components are abundant in the nature and also because they pose much less challenges to the environment.

 “We were able to use taurine, an amino acid that is present in the blood and human body by creating suitable conditions as a catalyst and use it to increase the speed of reactions, especially in the configurations that are of medical uses,” the researcher further said.

“In this research, we were able to use pregabalin as an inexpensive compound in a process that we refer to in chemistry as the process of preparing optically active compounds,” Shirini further pointed out.

“We used some samples for wastewater treatment and implemented two projects in Gilan University, which yielded good results,” he said.

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