Comprehending the lime production process
Lime production is a complex process that calls for an increasingly deep level of process comprehension. The fact that legislators keep stipulating ever lower emission levels, coupled with ever increasing energy and maintenance costs in connection with the production process, makes such comprehension more necessary than ever. Since any change of generations tends to involve the loss of much experience, this article is dedicated to passing on a plethora of long-standing, fundamental, practical experience as a collection of information leading to improved process comprehension, particularly for young technical and managerial personnel.
1 Introduction
As shown in Figure 1, the overall lime production process basically consists of two lines, the first of which, the production line, essentially comprises the following operations: quarrying, the actual industrial process (incl. the individual sub-processes: stone preparation, calcining, refining and storage/dispatch) and the application processes. The other, the supply line, begins with inputs of energy and additional media (fuel, water, air, etc.) and ends with environmentally relevant emissions and the disposal of media. In principle, the individual stages of the overall...