Impact of calcination temperature and time on quicklime slaking reactivity

Abstract: In this master thesis work calcination parameters' impact on the resulting quicklimes slaking reactivity is investigated. This is done by calcination of three different sedimentary limestones in an N2 atmosphere according to a design of experiment matrix. The limestones are from Wolica Poland, Slite Sweden and Jutjärn Sweden. The temperatures and residence times are varied between 1000ºC, 1050ºC, and 1100ºC for 5 min, 27.5 min, and 60 min. There were seven experiments per limestone sample. The calcination experiments were conducted in an electrical muffle furnace.When the limestone samples were calcined, the resulting quicklimes slaking reactivity was tested according to standard SS-EN 459-2:2010 Building lime - Part 2: Test methods. Four different parameters were used to determine the slaking reactivity, these were the maximum temperature, how much the temperature increases under the initial 30 s, the time it takes for the temperature to reach 60ºC, and the time for the slaking to become 80% finished.From the slaking reactivity experiments, the calcination parameters to produce the most reactive quicklime for the limestone from Wolica and Jutjärn are 1000ºC for 60 min, and for the limestone from Slite 1100ºC for 5 min. For all three limestones the least reactive quicklime was received by calcining at 1100ºC for 60 min. The most and least reactive quicklimes were analyzed in SEM, where it could be seen that the least reactive quicklime samples were coarser compared to the most reactive samples. Depending on what slaking reactivity parameter is of interest, the calcination settings should be different and can be an indication for operation parameters for industrial kilns. The statistical analysis on the experimental model showed that the experiment had a poor statistical fit for most of the experiment. This could be due to that the model possibly was too simple to describe the calcination parameters complex impact on the slaking reactivity.