Effect of the calcination temperature on the properties of natural hydroxyapatite derived from chicken bone wastes

Abstract

Abstract Food industries by-products, specifically chicken bone is usually regarded as waste and will be discarded without fully utilizing it. From the perspective of waste to wealth, this by-product can indeed useful to be employed as a cheap bio-resource to form hydroxyapatite. For this purpose, chicken femur bone wastes were subjected to thermal treatment as a function of different calcination temperature (i.e. 500 oC, 700 oC and 900 oC) to produce hydroxyapatite. Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRF) were used to evaluate the properties of the calcined samples. XRD and FTIR studies revealed that increasing calcination temperature will lead to the following phenomenon: increasing crystallinity, loss of organic ash association as well as depletion of carbonate content from the hydroxyapatite lattice. FTIR analysis also indicated that the chicken bone sample sintered at 700 oC was B-type carbonated hydroxyapatite while no carbonate content was detected in sample calcined at 900 oC. XRF also corroborated the presence of inorganic elements such as Mg, Na and Sr in the hydroxyapatite lattice, thus suggesting the potential of this chicken bone-derived hydroxyapatite for bone engineering applications.