The collected chicken eggshells were rinsed thoroughly with
tap water until the organic matter was removed. The washed eggshells
were again rinsed twice with distilled water and were dried
in hot air oven at 100–120 C for 24 h. The dried eggshells were
powdered in an agate mortar and the powder form was calcined
at three different temperatures 500, 700 to 900 C in muffle furnace
for 4 h (heating rate 2 min1
) and then stored in a desiccator.
Material thus obtained was the CaO(cesp) and used for transesterification
and preparation of metal impregnated CaO(cesp) based
catalysts. The incorporation of metals was carried out by impregnation
of the metal oxide on CaO support by using wet-incipient
method with aqueous solutions of their metal nitrates. 5 gm of
CaO(cesp) was suspended in 30 mL of deionized water. To this
5 mL of aqueous solution of 3 wt% of metal nitrate was added.
The reaction mixture thus obtained was stirred for 4 h at room
temperature. The reaction mixture was filtered and the solid material
was dried in air, then in oven at 120 C for 4 h and finally calcined
in a muffle furnace at three different temperatures 500, 700
to 900 C in muffle furnace for 4 h (heating rate 2 min1
). The
catalysts thus prepared were characterized by powder XRD, BET
surface area measurement, SEM and FT-IR techniques.
2.3. C