Introduction Woodceramics are, in a sense, carbon/carbon hybrid materials consisting of plant-originated amorphous carbon reinforced by glassy carbon generated from resin. They are higher in strength than wood, but lighter and readily machinable as compared with ceramics [1]. They were originally prepared by carbonizing wood or woody materials impregnated with thermosetting resin, such as phenol resin, in a vacuum furnace [2]. Thus, their potential for use as electromagnetic shielding materials [3], lubricating materials [4, 5], and sensor materials [6] has been reported. Recently, woodceramics are considered environ- ment benign materials or so-called ecomaterials, because they can be produced from carbon-containing industrial wastes and take part as a member of a closed material recycle system, and their by-products, such as the decomposition products, can be recycled [7]. For instance, in the apple products industry in Aomori Prefecture, Japan, about 4250 t/year of apple juice extract residues, i.e., apple pomace, which corresponds to about 20% of the raw material, is being wasted. Thus, woodceramics were produced from apple pomace, and detailed studies have been made on the effect of sintering conditions as well as characterization of them, such as densities, structures, and thermooxidative properties for use as sorbents [8, 9]. Similarly, as Japanese enjoy more western dishes, more eggs and chicken meat are consumed, and tradi- tional farms are increasing scale to bring up poultries and broilers, resulting in the production of larger amount of chicken wastes (feces). It is reported that such chicken wastes amounting to 8.1 million tons from poultry and 5 million tons from other chickens are being disposed annually. This is becoming a serious problem also in US because, not only it lacks proper means to dispose large amount of wastes, but also such animal manure causes environmental concerns such as polluting water [10] and delivering unfavorable odor that annoy people. As a measure for coping with this problem, it had long been proposed to use chicken wastes as agricultural fertilizers, since chicken feces contain elements and compounds such as calcium, potassium, nitrogen, magnesium, and the like in addition to carbon. This proposal is ideal in that the wastes can be used in a closed cycle in the farm sites. However, the chicken wastes or carbonized products obtained therefrom were found to have strong unfavorable smell, which was found as a serious problem to be overcome. Thus, woodceramics using chicken wastes free from odor was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and thermal analysis. The chemical composi- tion of carbonized chicken waste and woodceramics made from chicken waste (CH800) was determined by X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (SQX). The reason why they are odor-free was investigated by mainly using simultaneous thermogravimetry-differential thermal analysis (TG-DTA) coupled with evolved gas 1388–6150/$20.00 Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, Hungary © 2005 Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest Springer, Dordrecht, The Netherlands Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry, Vol. 80 (2005) 489–493 TG-DTA/GC-MS STUDY OF ODORLESS WOODCERAMICS FROM CHICKEN WASTES R. Ozao 1* , T. Okabe 2 , T. Arii 3 , Y. Nishimoto 4 , Y. Cao 5 , N. Whitely 5 and W.-P. Pan 5 1 SONY Institute of Higher Education, Atsugi, 243-8501 Kanagawa, Japan 2 Aomori Industrial Research Center, Environmental Technology Div., 4-11-6, Daini-tonyamachi, 030-0113 Aomori, Japan 3 Rigaku Corporation, 3-9-12 Matsubara, Akishima, 196-8666 Tokyo, Japan 4 Kanagawa University, Dept. of Chemistry, Hiratsuka, 259-1295 Kanagawa, Japan 5 Western Kentucky University, Dept. of Chemistry, 1 Big Red Way, Bowling Green, KY, 42101, USA An odorless woodceramics (CH800), which was prepared by carbonizing chicken wastes with phenolic resin, was characterized by XRD and thermal analysis. CH800 was found to consist mainly of amorphous carbon (non-graphitizing carbon) as studied by XRD. Differing from carbonized chicken waste, CH800 was completely free of unfavorable smell. The source of strong smell of carbonized chicken waste was studied by using TG-DTA combined with EGA technique using gas chromatography and mass spectrometry (TG-DTA/GC-MS). As a result, it was found that CH800 was completely free of compounds having strong smell, i.e., ethanol, acetonitrile, pyridine, styrene, benzonitrile and benzofuran, whereas carbonized chicken waste contained all of these compounds. Keywords: adsorption, chicken waste, ecomaterial, micropores, smell, sorbent, TG-DTA/GC-MS, woodceramics * Author for correspondence: ozao@ei.shohoku.ac.jp