Department of Chemical Engineering, Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey Department of Bioengineering, Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey E-mail: yuce.sevil@gmail.com Manuscript received online 20 October 2020, revised and accepted 31 October 2020 In this study, PVA/silica gel composite films were prepared. For this, sodium silicate solution was produced from rice hull ash (RHA) which is a cheap agricultural waste by alkali extraction method. Sodium silicate solutions were gelated at pH 7 with HCl addition by sol-gel method. Silica gels were added to PVA films at first time with this study to make films which is different than the literature studies. Composite films were produced by using obtained gels and PVA with three different viscosity grades. PVA, has different viscosity and same hydrolysis degrees; 5:88, 26:88 and 40:88. PVA/silica gel films were obtained by drying at room temperature for 24 h and in vacuum. Structural characteristics of prepared PVA/silica gel films were determined by FT-IR analysis and their surface morphology was determined by SEM. Films obtained with high viscosity PVA showed homogeneous structure and slightly higher water absorption capacity.