Characterization of calcium oxide derived from waste eggshell and its application as CO2 sorbent

The carbonation–calcination looping cycle of calcium-based sorbents is considered as an attractive method for CO2 capture from combustion gases because it can reduce the cost during the capture steps compared to conventional technologies, e.g., solvent scrubbing. In this study, waste eggshell was used as raw material for calcium oxide-based sorbent production. The commercially available calcium carbonate was employed for comparison purpose. Calcination behavior, crystal type and crystallinity, surface chemistry, qualitative and quantitative elemental information, specific surface area and pore size, morphology of the waste eggshell and the calcined waste eggshell were characterized by thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), N2 sorption analysis and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), respectively. The carbonation–calcination cycles were carried out using a TGA unit with high purity CO2 (99.999%). It was found that the carbonation conversion of the calcined eggshell was higher than that of the calcined commercially available calcium carbonate after several cycles at the same reaction conditions. This could be due to the fact that the calcined eggshell exhibited smaller particle size and appeared more macropore volume than the calcined commercially available calcium carbonate. As results, the calcined eggshell provided a higher exposed surface for the surface reaction of CO2.