LAUSR

In recent years, nanoparticles derived from natural resources have attracted interest of researchers to use them as potential materials for applications in several areas including biomedical and polymer fillers, where synthetic materials are found to be toxic. There is very limited research published in open literature on the conversion of biobased inorganic materials into functional products to meet societal needs. In this research, we present the synthesis of nanoparticles from natural waste, renewable resources, such as eggshells and rice husk. The nanoparticles include in this study are: CaCO3 and Calcium hydroxyapatite (CHA) from eggshell and SiO2, from rice husk. Rice husk (RH and eggshells are excellent sources of bio based silica (SiO2), and calcium carbonate (CaCO3) particles respectively. About 45,000 tons of chicken eggshells are produced annually as a waste [1]. The safe disposal of these eggshells burdens the environment, poultry industry and consumers, financially. Therefore, alternative use of waste eggshell will be obviously a benefit to society. Recently we have developed a simple technique to extract CaCO3 from eggshell and used them as a value-added product [2-5]. Similarly the RH is a waste byproduct of rice and produces about 20-22 % weight of the total rice production. United States of America alone produced ~13 billion tons of rice in 2015 [6] and 10.6 million tons of sugar bagasse [7]. RH constitutes ~ 20% of silica by weight and usually used ineffectively. Incorporation of these hard particles into a polymer matrix can eventually improve the properties of the polymer and thus also reuse and recycle the waste. These biobased particles are also highly biocompatible and suitable for bone regeneration and other biomedical applications.