Fine β-SiC powders were synthesized from rice husks and fused silica powder. In this SiC powder synthesis, carbon flakes were carbonized by heating rice husks with silica powder, and then the carbon flakes underwent a secondary reaction with the SiO vapor formed by the carbothermal reduction reaction. The SiC powders obtained from carbonized rice husks and fused silica powder were characterized by XRD, XPS, SEM and TEM. In the XRD patterns, the spectra clearly showed very strong peaks for the (111) plane near 35^o and weak (220) and (311) peaks at approximately 60^o and 72^o, respectively. According to the XRD pattern, the powder synthesized from a 6:4 mixture of carbonized rice husks and silica under an Ar atmosphere contained mainly cubic crystalline SiC and a relatively small amount of a hexagonal phase without residual carbon. TEM images and FFT pattern showed that this specimen contained relatively fine particles (under 0.5 µm) and a crystalline 3C-SiC phase with a (100) diffraction pattern

Keywords: Silicon carbide (SiC), Rice husks, Silica, Carbothermal reduction