Development of egg packets and silica from rice husk

Abstract

The extraction of nano-size silica and development of hard packets for egg storage from rice husk (RH) using chemical method has been carried out. The obtained silica and egg packets have been characterized using Infra red spectrometer (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning electron microcopy (SEM) and Shore D. The result reveals the formation of nano size silica with size 50-60 nm with surface area of 542 m² g/L. The physical hardness of egg packets is found 52 D, suitable for egg storage. The efficacy of developed packets on fresh market egg quality during storage at ambient temperature is investigated in terms of weight loss, pH and albumen quality. The developed packets show 35% lesser weight loss and pH 0.3 during 4 weeks of storage time.