Scrambled Eggs or How Eggshells Become Phosphates

POTES VECINI, DIANA; JOFRÉ, SHIRLEY C.; PEREYRA RÍOS, FLORENCIA B.; SARTUQUI, JAVIER; MESSINA, PAULA; GONZÁLEZ, M. BELÉN; SAUGO, MELISA; MEIER, LORENA; DÍAZ, MÓNICA F.; CIOLINO, ANDRÉS E.

JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION

AMER CHEMICAL SOC

Lugar: Washington; Año: 2019 vol. 96 p. 1443 - 1448

0021-9584

 As  part  of  the  training  activities  planned  for  the  Chemical Engineering degree, in 2016, a group of students from the Chemical Engineering Laboratory course was challenged to face a plausible reuse of discarded eggshells.A  straightforward  methodology  to  synthesize  phosphates  such  as  calcium pyrophosphate or fl uoroapatite among others was developed using commercial phosphoric acid and discarded eggshells as starting materials. Throughout the development of this activity, topics such as recycling and reuse of discarded materials, guided-inquiry instruction, self-learning, and soft-skills development were  successfully  covered.  The  strategy  proposed  in  this  work  encourages students to make connections between science and life and provides an excellent linkage between chemical research and recycling without neglecting those basics required by the o ffi cial curriculum.