Advances in Environmental Biology, 8(22) November 2014, Pages: 35-38 AENSI Journals Advances in Environmental Biology ISSN-1995-0756 EISSN-1998-1066 Journal home page: http://www.aensiweb.com/AEB/ Corresponding Author: Rohazriny Rohim, School of Environmental Engineering, Universiti Malaysia Perlis, Kompleks Pusat Pengajian Jejawi 3, 02600, Arau, Perlis, Malaysia E-mail: rohazrinyrohim@gmail.com Characterization of Calcium Oxide Catalyst from Eggshell Waste Rohazriny Rohim, Razi Ahmad, Naimah Ibrahim, Nasrul Hamidin, Che Zulzikrami Azner Abidin School of Environmental Engineering, Universiti Malaysia Perlis, Kompleks Pusat Pengajian Jejawi 3, 02600, Arau, Perlis, Malaysia ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article history: Received 25 September 2014 Received in revised form 26 October 2014 Accepted 25 November 2014 Available online 31 December 2014 Keywords: eggshell, calcium oxide, catalyst, bio- oil Abundance of eggshell waste leads to high generation of solid waste as it is difficult to decompose. Besides, eggshell waste has no economic value and most of the waste is dumped in landfills without any pretreatment. Thus, an efficient method has been conducted to study the chemical characterization of eggshell waste. Eggshells contain potential useful minerals such as calcium oxide (CaO) that can be derived from calcium carbonate (CaCO3) in the eggshells. The objective of this study is to synthesize and characterize CaO from eggshells. Raw eggshells are analyzed by thermal gravimetric analyzer (TGA). Then, they are calcined at the temperature of 900oC for 1 hour with nitrogen gas. Raw and calcined eggshell are characterized by x-ray fluorescence (XRF)and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy to obtain elemental composition and functional group of eggshell. TGA showed that the suitable temperature for calcination was 900oC. XRF results showed that CaO in raw eggshell was 98.50% and increased to 98.56% in calcined eggshell. FTIR analysis of eggshell showed the Ca – O band formed around 670 cm-1.CaO from eggshell is expected to act as a catalyst for bio-oil production. © 2014 AENSI Publisher All rights reserved. To Cite This Article: Rohazriny Rohim, Razi Ahmad, Naimah Ibrahim, Nasrul Hamidin, Che Zulzikrami Azner Abidin, Characterization of Calcium Oxide Catalyst from Eggshell Waste. Adv. Environ. Biol., 8(22), 35-38, 2014 INTRODUCTION Eggs are a major ingredient in a variety of products such as cakes, fast food, and also in our daily meal. The production of chicken eggs in the industry leads to the generation of eggshells, which are considered as waste. Apart from that, eggshell waste has no economic value and most of it has to be discarded to the landfills without any processing. Consequently, this can cause high risk to public health and pollution to the environment. High generation of eggshell waste may increase the production of solid waste in landfills as eggshells are part of the solid waste. About 642 600 tonnes of egg was produced in Malaysia in the year of 2012 [1]. 11% of the total weight is denoted by the shell which can be estimated at 70 686 tonnes of waste generated per year [2]. The percentage of eggshell waste generation is expected to increase year by year and this will cause an environmental issue. Eggshells contain calcium carbonate (CaCO 3 ) which is a main element of the eggshell. An eggshell consists of about 94% of CaCO 3 , 1% of magnesium carbonate, 1% of calcium phosphate, and 4% of organic matter [3]. CaCO 3 can be converted into calcium oxide (CaO) via the calcination process. CaO was the active phase in the eggshells and the suitable temperature for calcination process must be above 800 o C[4]. CaO is a raw material for producing lime in the industry [5]. Using CaO from lime stone may contribute to environmental problem as the source of this commercial CaO is a non-renewable resource. Large usage of non-renewable CaO causes rapid depletion of those resources. This has led to many researches being made in order to find alternative ways to replace commercial CaO. Eggshell waste is expected to be a source of this substance as it is non-corrosive, environmental friendly and economical. CaO from eggshell waste is expected to replace other commercial calcium oxide which is more expensive and high cost of production. To address these issues, an alternative way had been studied to characterize potential mineral such as CaO from eggshells. The objective of this research is to synthesize and characterize CaO from waste eggshells. CaO from eggshell is expected to be a catalyst for bio-oil production as it can reduce oxygen content, which is an unnecessary compound in the production of bio-oil via catalytic pyrolysis. The presence of oxygen in the bio-oil has a negative effect such as further increasing the corrosion due to its low pH. Lu et al. [6] reported that CaO