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Improving Air Quality – Flue Gas Desulfurization Using Specialty Minerals Ground Calcium Carbonates (GCCs) and Calcium Oxide.

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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Lime (calcium oxide) and limestone (ground calcium carbonate, or GCC) can be used to remove sulfur dioxide and hydrogen chloride from power-generation facility stack gases. Flue gas desulphurization (FGD) processes are typically installed at coal burning power plants or municipal waste-to-energy plants. Both lime (also called quicklime) and limestone are effective in wet scrubbing processes, but lime is often preferred because it is more reactive than limestone and requires less capital equipment for its use.


Flue Gas Desulphurization With Lime or Limestone
Finely ground, high-purity calcium carbonate or high-purity lime is slurried in water and pumped into the absorber section of the flue gas scrubber. The scrubbed gasses, which are cooled in the lower section of the absorber, pass through a spray of limestone or lime slurry, along with recycled calcium sulfate. Although the contact time between the gas and the spray is relatively short, almost 90 percent of the oxides of sulfur are removed.


Specialty Minerals Products Flue Gas Desulphurization
High purity GCCs are manufactured in Specialty Minerals Inc. (SMI) plants in Adams, Massachusetts and Lucerne Valley, California. Products recommended for Flue Gas Desulfurization and stack gas scrubbing include:

Click on a product’s name to download the technical data sheet for the product.  Note there is no data sheet for Crusher Fines.

 

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