The present invention relates to a process for the production of spherical silica gel from water glass.
Silica gel is useful not only as a column filler for liquid or gas chromatography but also as a catalyst or a support thereof for use in various catalytic reactions. Hitherto, powdery silica gel and spherical silica gel are known in this art generally as silica gel. As the spherical silica gel is superior to the powdery silica gel in respect of quality and useful properties in actual use, the demand for the former is now increasing. However, the production of spherical silica gel is difficult and thus involves a problem of higher cost. In general, spherical silica gel is produced by hydrolysis of tetraalkoxysilanes. Since tetraalkoxysilanes used as starting material in this case are expensive, the spherical silica gel obtained therefrom becomes unavoidably higher in the cost. Thus, there is a great demand for developing a process for producing spherical silica gel economically.