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Environment: Improving Soil, Water and Air Quality Using Specialty Minerals Ground Calcium Carbonates (GCCs) and Limes

Lime and limestone are instrumental in meeting a number of important environmental goals. Many of these goals have to do with the purification of our natural resources. Lime and limestone remove sulfur dioxide and hydrogen chloride from the stack gases of power generating facilities, and are used in flue gas desulfurization (FGD) at coal burning power plants and municipal waste-to-energy plants. Lime is a key chemical in waste-water treatment as well as the removal of undesirable elements from drinking water, and can also improve the condition of soils by drying, modifying, or stabilizing. In “quicklime” form, lime also functions as a cost-effective acid neutralization agent and is very helpful in removing toxins from liquid waste.


Lime vs. Limestone
Limestone is ground calcium carbonate (GCC), CaCO3. Lime, also known as quicklime, is calcium oxide or CaO. The latter is produced by calcining limestone, breaking the calcium carbonate into calcium oxide and carbon dioxide. Sometimes, especially in agricultural applications, limestone is called lime, and the process of adding limestone to soil is called liming. To be technically accurate, it is limestone that is used in such cases, not lime. 

Chemical lime is highly reactive in water, emitting large amounts of heat, while limestone reacts more slowly in water. Both react quickly with acids. Thus it is important to clearly specify which chemical is desired for which application. 

Another mineral, dolomite, often is used interchangeably with limestone. Dolomite is a double salt, calcium magnesium carbonate, with a chemical formula of CaMg(CO3)2.


Speciatly Minerals Products for Environmental Applications
Specialty Minerals Inc. (SMI) manufactures GCCs, dolomites, and limes in the United States. Among the wide range of environmental applications are:

Click on one of these applications to read more about how SMI carbonates and lime can assist in your environmental problem situations, and the specific SMI grades recommended.

SMI supplies crushed and screened ground and pulverized limestone and dolomite products from our quarries in Adams, Massachusetts, Canaan, Connecticut, and Lucerne Valley, California. The plant is Adams also produces lime or calcium oxide.

 

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