Quick Lime By Lime Mineral & Chemicals

Calcium oxide (CaO), commonly known as quicklime, is a widely used chemical compound. It is a white, caustic and alkaline crystalline solid at room temperature. As acommercial product, lime often also contains magnesium oxide, silicon oxide and smaller amounts of aluminum oxide and iron oxide.

Calcium oxide is usually made by the thermal decomposition of materials such as limestone that contain calcium carbonate (CaCO3; mineral calcite) in a lime kiln. This is accomplished by heating the material to above 825 A C,[1] a process called calcinations or lime-burning, to liberate a molecule of carbon dioxide (CO2); leaving quicklime. This process is reversible, since once the quicklime product has cooled, it immediately begins to absorb carbon dioxide from the air, until, after enough time, it is completely converted back to calcium carbonate.

Quick Lime is used in glass production and its ability to react with silicates is also used in modern metal production industries(steel in particular) to remove impurities as slag.

It is also used in water and sewage treatment to reduce acidity, to harden, as a flocculant, and to remove phosphates and other impurities; in paper making to dissolve lignin, as a coagulant, and in bleaching; in agriculture to improve acidic soils; and in pollution control, in gas scrubbers to desulfurize waste gases and to treat many liquid effluents.