CAPACITANCE OF CHICKEN EGGSHELL MEMBRANE AS A FUNCTION OF TEMPERATURE

Chicken eggshells are often generated in large quantities as waste but still remain under-utilised. Prevalently, such disposal method enhances environmental pollution and breeding of disease-carrying organisms,thereby posing severe adverse effects on public health. This research aimed at devising a way to address 'the problems while deriving benefits from the approach.Chicken eggshells were gathered, washed, dried, and processed. The blended material was utilised to produce five identical disc-shaped compacts used as test samples in this study. Capacitance of the samples was measured at a temperature range of 20° to 70°C. It was observed that, irrespective of the temperature considered, the samples exhibited negative temperature coefficient of capacitance. Also, the dielectric permittivity decreased as temperature increased but ranged in values within the adopted temperatures limits. Again, it was noticed that the samples could serve as a suitable alternative to conventional dielectrics such as polypropylene, mica, and polyphenylene which are usually and commonly applied for capacitor manufacturing. Hence, valorisation of chicken eggshells could serve as a scientific way of solving the associated disposal problems while availing electrical/electronic industries with low-cost, environmentally-friendly, and promising dielectric material suitable for use in capacitive energy storage devices. In the alternative, the samples could be used for electrical insulation in systems designed to operate at temperature that exceeds room value by up to 70℃.