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The nanocomposite technology is applicable to a wide range of thermoplastic and thermoset polymers. The use of sugar cane byproducts has been extensively studied as a source of reinforcement for nanocomposites. The bagasse is widely used in cogeneration and as a result of the burning of this material, millions of tons of ash are produced. For this work, silica contained in the ashes of bagasse from sugarcane was extracted by chemical method and thermal method. The thermal method is more efficient leading to a purity of more than 93% of silica, while the chemical method generated silica contaminated with chlorine and sodium from the extraction reagents. The silica particles obtained were evaluated by dynamic light scattering (DSL) and presented an average size of 12 micrometers. These particles were submitted to grinding in a ball mill and then to a sonochemical treatment. Silica particles treated by the sonochemical process (20 kHz, 500 W and 90 minutes) had its dimensions reduced to nanometric scale of tenths of nanometers. The nanossílica obtained was then used as reinforcement in high density polyethylene (HDPE). Mechanical and thermo-mechanical properties were assessed and gains were shown for mechanical properties , except for the impact resistance. The distortion temperature (HDT) showed that the incorporation of the reinforcement in HDPE led to a small increase in this property compared to pure HDPE. The crystallinity of the nanocomposites generated was evaluated by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and it was observed a decrease of crystallinity in the material when the reinforcing incorporation was 3%. The material irradiated to 250 kGy with electron beam showed important property gains, mainly due to the high level of crosslinking of irradiated HDPE.