Lime

Lime and limestone products are essential materials used by early men, and their demand has never been high as today. These materials are used in a plethora of applications and serve as a vital building block in most industrial processes.

What Is Lime?

Lime is a product obtained from calcined (burnt) limestone, such as hydrated lime and quicklime. Limestone occurs naturally and abundantly as a sedimentary rock and is composed of high levels of magnesium carbonate and/or calcium, and or/ dolomite (magnesium carbonate and calcium), along with insignificant amounts of other minerals. Limestone is mined from mines and quarries all over the globe.

How Is Lime Made?

1. Limestone extraction

Since lime is derived from limestone, the first stage has to be extracting the limestone from mines and quarries.

2. Sizing

Limestone is crushed at the primary crusher.  Depending on the required feed-stone, it might be conveyed to a secondary or tertiary crusher to make it much smaller. The screening takes place to sort stones into different sizes.

3. Calcining

Several processes take place in this stage:

Pre-heating – limestone is heated at the preheater kiln. Here it comes in contact with exhaust gasses. It is then conveyed to the lime kilns. To ‘calcine’ limestone, a significant amount of heat is transferred to the limestone. This heat transfer is divided into:

Calcining – the kiln fuel burns in the preheated air, forcing limestone to move down the kiln. It is turned into carbon dioxide and quicklime.

Cooling – as it moves from the calcining zone, quicklime is cooled by cooling air.'

Uses of Lime

Nowadays, lime is utilised in:

• Environmental preservation in air pollutant abatement, wastewater treatment, mine tailing drainage, remediation, and epidemic diseases control.
• In homes for lawn and garden neutralizers, dry bleaches, plaster and stucco, copper, gold dyes, toothpaste, glass, tortilla flour, sugar, leather, pharmaceuticals, paper, table salt, paint, masonry, and mortar.
• In industries for petroleum refining, sodium alkali, wood pulp, alumina, magnesium, steel, barium, zinc, nickel, lithium, glass, solar-grade silica, lead, uranium.
• In communities for sewage treatment, agricultural liming, water treatment, asphalt, and apple storage.
• In construction, builders lime is used in soil stabilization for roads, building foundations, earthen dams, and airfields.

However, the most significant single use of lime remains in steel manufacturing. It is utilised to eradicate impurities.

Types of Lime

Though the production process is the same, different lime types can be produced depending on their specific applications. Here are the main types:

• Hydraulic lime – this is composed of naturally heated mixtures of clay and calcium carbonate. This type of lime buy is used purposely for harbour walls as lime sets in immediately when water is added.

• Non-hydraulic lime – the main component for this type is calcium carbonate. The lime only sets when carbonated. It is normally used in steel and chemical industries for various reasons.

• Feebly hydraulic lime – it is preferred for external and internal work on soft and porous bricks as well as covered areas. The lime has insignificant amounts of clay and other impurities. Setting process for this lime takes more time, usually a week, which could be why the lime cost is low compared to other types.
• Dry-slaked lime – the exponential growth of 18^th-century cities and towns necessitated lime to be made on site. Dry slaking is ideal for this. Water is added to the fresh quicklime to slake it. This mixture is then covered with sand and then screened to eliminate un-slaked quicklime, and the slaked lime is used immediately by adding water.

Searching for a high-quality lime for sale, do not look any further than MGN Builders Merchants online store.  We not only guarantee the quality of the products that we sell, but we also stock all the supportive building essentials that you might need along with lime, such as bucket trowels, gauging trowels and shovels.