Researchers have shown considerable interest in finding a sustainable, low cost, and readily available substitute for the commercial calcium oxide (CaO) catalyst. In this work, raw chicken eggshell was modified by boiling and calcination at 900 °C for 3 h. The x-ray diffraction characterization revealed that while the proportion of CaCO3 in the raw and boiled samples was found to be 79.3 % and 99.2 % respectively, the CaCO3 had been converted to 63.8 % CaO and CO2 in the calcined sample. This was due to the thermal decomposition during calcination. The outcome of the infrared spectroscopy showed that the raw and boiled chicken eggshell presented a similar absorption profile with peaks at 1 394 cm−1, 873 cm−1, and 712 cm−1, which were as a result of the presence of asymmetric stretch, out-of-plane bend, and in-plane bend vibration modes. The major peaks presented by the calcined sample at 3642 cm−1 can be attributed to the OAH stretching vibration and bending hydroxyl groups present in Ca(OH)2. The Brunauer-Emmett-Teller surface areas for the raw, boiled and calcined chicken eggshell were found to be 2.33 m2/g, 3.26 m2/g, and 4.6 m2/g respectively, indicating increased catalytic activity of the calcined sample. Overall, boiling was found to have a negligible effect on the chicken eggshell, while high-temperature calcination greatly affected the pore size, surface area, composition, and thermal decomposition profile of the chicken eggshell sample.