Large amounts of rice husk ash (RHA) are discharged from rice husk power plants, and the development of an effective system for recycling this RHA waste would be desirable. In the current study, the silica component of RHA obtained from a rice husk power plant in Myanmar was successfully used as raw material for the synthesis of the aluminum silicate nanotube material, imogolite. The RHA used contained 91.65 wt % silica, which was composed of a mixed phase of cristobalite, tridymite, and amorphous silica. The synthesized imogolite had a BET surface area of 282.0 m(2)/g and a web-like structure formed of fibrous bundles. The imogolite adsorbed 8.8 mu mol/g acetaldehyde in 60 min, representing a value approximately 5 times greater than that achieved by the parent RHA.